The Last Summer

by Judith Kinghorn

  I remained silent in Tom’s arms as he explained to Mama, with Maude standing next to her, exactly what had taken place, and I saw my mother look across the lawn in Henry’s direction, narrowing her eyes. Maude looked at me, frowning with a tad too much concern, and then she scrunched her face up even more and said, “Such a brave Issa.” Mama was examining my ankle, and as she rubbed her hand over it I cried out once more.

  “Oh my poor child, you have hurt yourself, haven’t you? He’s such a beastly boy, that brother of yours.” She looked at Tom. “Tom, would you be even more of an angel and take Clarissa up to her room? I shall fetch Mabel; she always knows exactly what’s required with these sorts of injuries.”

  As he carried me into the house I felt faint, almost as though I were in a dream. I couldn’t quite believe that Mama had asked Tom to take me to my room. And I suppose, looking back, it was a measure of her trust in him. I watched him, his face, as we moved through the hallway, past the jardinière, with its oversized palm, across the polished marble floor; his fingers spread out around my waist, his eyes fixed ahead. I studied the line of his jaw, the dark shadow of his clean-shaven chin, the curve of his mouth: a flicker of a smile playing upon his lips. We climbed the staircase in silence, through shafts of dust-filled light, and I could feel his heart, beating in perfect time with my own.

  “You’ll have to direct me from here,” he said, standing at the top of the stairs.

  I pointed. “Over there.”

  My door was ajar and as he carried me into the room he looked up and around, as though taking in its dimensions more than its detail: the walls, the windows, the ceiling, and then my bed.

  “Beautiful room,” he said, at last. “Strange, but it’s exactly as I’d imagined.”

  “Are you going to put me down? I think you’ve more than done your bit, Tom.”

  He moved to the side of the bed, stopped and looked down at me, into my eyes, and then we finally relinquished our hold on each other as he placed me upon my bed. I shuffled up against the pillows, without thinking bent my leg and unbuttoned my other shoe. He moved over to the window, the one looking directly south over the terrace and the lake.

  “Stunning view,” he said. He turned and came toward me. “I should go. Mabel will be here in a moment and I’m sure she’ll look after you.” But he seemed awkward, almost reluctant to leave me.

  I looked up at him. “Thank you, Tom. You’ve been most gallant.”

  He smiled at me, moved nearer. “You look like Titania,” he said, pulling a piece of green fern from my hair.

  At that moment Mama appeared in the doorway, shadowed by a stony-faced Mabel, carrying a small box and a bowl.

  “Thank you so much, Tom,” she said, moving past him.

  He raised his hand to me and disappeared through the door.

  That night I did not go down to dinner. My ankle had swollen to the size of a baby elephant’s, despite Mabel bringing up towels filled with ice and insisting I rest it upon them. Edina and Lucy visited me in my room, as well as each of my brothers, and Henry apologized. Sitting on the side of my bed and taking my hand in his, he said, “You know, I really am sorry. I thought you were feigning, Issa—like you always used to.”

  Mama, too, came and fussed over me. Plumping up my pillows and straightening the bed, she said, “Tom Cuthbert was very considerate today, very charming and kind.”

  “Yes, he’s a nice boy,” I replied, knowing how much the term nice boy meant to Mama.

  She glanced at me. “Yes, a very nice boy.”

  Some time after my eleventh birthday, I’d been relocated from the nursery floor to the vast expanse of my new “grown-up” bedroom, with its four tall windows looking out to the south and west. At first I’d hated it. The room seemed ridiculously large and much too formal with its matching wallpaper, curtains, upholstery and bedcover. I longed to return upstairs, to the gated confines of my childhood, to the sloping ceilings of my cozy attic life, and the dust and debris of a land far away from Mama’s coordinated, plumped-up world. I longed for the toys I’d had to leave behind there: my brothers’ toy soldiers and tattered fort; my dolls’ house, my dolls; and those treasured books suddenly deemed “too immature.” Miss Stephens, my nursemaid, departed, along with Miss Greaves—a governess (of sorts)—and Mademoiselle arrived. I’d resented these changes, was quietly angry with my mother. But by now, by this time, I had grown into my room and rarely ventured upstairs. I’d moved on.

  The following morning, my ankle greatly improved, I went down to breakfast. When Mama entered the dining room, accompanied by Aunt Maude, they both looked unusually troubled, and then Mama announced to us all that Germany had declared war upon Russia. All day it was all anyone could speak of, and though we continued our croquet tournament, it wasn’t the same. At four, play was suspended while Mabel and Mrs. Cuthbert once again brought out trays of fresh tea, jugs of lemonade and iced coffee, strawberries, cream and scones, and then served us from linen-covered tables set up on the edge of the lawn. For an hour or so we slumped in deck chairs on the grass under the sycamore tree, as Mama, Venetia and Aunt Maude looked on anxiously from the terrace. The boys all lay about on the lawn discussing whether and when they would enlist—if there were to be a war. And it seemed to me as though they were all set on it. From underneath my straw hat I watched Tom, even as I made conversation with Edina and Lucy. And from time to time he glanced at me, smiled, and then looked away.

  Earlier that day, before our game started, when I’d been sitting on the grass with the others, Tom had sat down next to me. I’d had my hand behind me, resting flat upon the lawn, and I suddenly felt the tips of his fingers touching mine. I turned to him, but he did nothing; didn’t look to me and didn’t move his hand away from mine. I glanced at Edina, sitting directly opposite us, wondering if she could see, and when she smiled back at me I knew that she had, and I quickly pulled my hand away. Later, in the evening, Edina came to my room, asking if she could borrow a ribbon.

  “I think you have an admirer, Issa,” she said, her back to me, as she fiddled with my comb box.

  “Oh really,” I replied, with adroitly manufactured nonchalance.

  “Yes, and I think you know too.” She turned to me, smiling. “Tom Cuthbert?”

  I laughed. “Edina, really . . . Tom is Mrs. Cuthbert’s son.”

  “That may be, but he’s extraordinarily handsome and, I believe, utterly preoccupied with you.”

  This, of course, was music to my ears. And I immediately recognized the potential benefit of an ally, a spy. For Edina was nothing if not an observer of people, and for as long as I could remember she’d been an unexploited expert on the subtle intricacies of character and human dynamics.

  “Preoccupied with me? Do you really think so?” I asked, looking down, playing with the ribbon in my hands.

  “Completely and utterly.”

  I looked up at her, unable not to smile. “He is rather gorgeous, isn’t he?”

  “Divine, darling. And you appear to have captured his heart and his mind.”

  “But how can you tell? What did you see?” I asked, eager for her to share her observations.

  “Oh but, Clarissa, you hardly need me to tell you, dear heart. You must surely see yourself.” She glanced at me, smiling. “He’s completely enamored by you; in love, I’d say. And how do I know this? Because from the moment I arrived—or rather the moment he appeared, when we all sat on the terrace that very first evening—he seemed to be . . . a little too aware of you,” she continued, moving about the room, as though conducting a talk to an audience far larger than one. “He’d simply fail to notice any other beauty fluttering her eyelashes at him. And even when he’s talking, listening to someone else, he’s so obviously distracted by you, dear.” She looked at me, gave a little shiver. “Captivated . . . totally captivated.”

  It was tempting. I could have told her then that Tom Cuthbert and I had already begun a type of love affair, at least a love affair in my mind. But I
decided not to. Although ten months older than me, which qualified her as indisputably worldly at that time, I knew Edina to be too easily flattered to be discreet. She’d be bound to want to disclose my secret to another, if only to be acknowledged in her role as confidante.

  The following day, a little too self-conscious under Edina’s scrutiny, I found myself avoiding Tom’s gaze altogether. He and I seemed unable to converse in front of others, and so but for the occasional “yes” or “no” we usually said almost nothing at all to each other during those afternoon croquet games. But later, each evening, when we met in the meadow, we compared notes, dissecting the characters of Deyning’s assorted houseguests.

  “She’s too uppity,” he said, when I asked him about Edina. “And she watches you all the time. It’s as though she’s guarding you, or observing your every move for some in-depth study or other.”

  “How simply fascinating,” I said. “She must be observing us both then . . .”

  “How so?”

  “Oh, nothing. Edina likes to watch people, and I have to say she’s really rather good at it.”

  “I hadn’t realized it was an art.”

  “And what do you make of Lucy?” I asked.

  “She’s sweet. More like you . . . apart from that annoying habit of repeating the last line of everything anyone says.”

  I laughed. “She’s only fifteen, Tom.”

  “I think Charlie Boyd rather likes you,” he said, reaching down and pulling at a blade of grass.

  “Charlie? Oh, Charlie’s a dear, an absolute dear, and I’ve known him forever. He’s like another cousin, that’s all.”

  He made no reply and I wanted to tell him then that I wasn’t in the least interested in Charlie, but instead I moved on, to my godmother.

  “And what of Venetia?” I asked. I was curious to know what he thought of my godmother; curious to know if he was drawn to her in the same way other young men seemed to be. “Like moths to a flame,” Mama had once said.

  He turned to me. “Venetia?”

  “Yes, what do you make of her? She’s rather beautiful, isn’t she?”

  “Yes, I suppose she is rather . . . exotic,” he replied, looking away from me.

  I felt a twinge. I’d like to have been described as exotic; but it struck me that perhaps it was something one grew into.

  “Voluptuous?” I asked, referring to Venetia’s unmistakable and much renowned curves.

  “Hmm, yes, voluptuous . . .” he said, dreamily.

  And I could feel my face flush. “Well, you’ll be pleased to know she rather likes young men, Tom,” I said, rising to my feet.

  He looked up at me, smiling. “And what do you mean by that?”

  I hesitated. “Oh, nothing . . . nothing at all. I must get back now.”

  We walked back through the meadow in silence, maintaining our distance and separating at the stable-yard gate with a casual “good-bye.” Aunt Maude—like her daughter, a keen observer—had asked me over dinner the previous evening whom she’d seen me with, walking back from the meadow. “Oh, possibly Tom Cuthbert, or perhaps Mr. Broughton,” I replied. “I bumped into each of them on my walk. It was such a glorious evening, Aunt.”

  Then Mama said, “Clarissa does so love her solitary ambles,” and I caught the tail end of Edina’s knowing smile.

  I couldn’t sleep that night. It was hot—too hot. And despite every window in my room being open, the curtains tied back, the air was completely still. I heard Henry on the terrace beneath my bedroom, talking to our cousins, Archie and Johnnie. And I moved over to my window seat. “We’ve all got to do it,” he was saying. “Those Huns are on the move now and they won’t stop. They’re after our empire . . .”

  I returned to my bed and lay down upon the sheet. I thought of Tom; wondered if he was asleep. Was he dreaming of me? Henry’s voice continued, and I tried to block it out and focus my mind on Tom: Tom and me under the sycamore tree. But Henry was gathering momentum, interrupting my scenes with his diatribe about whatever it was he was so impassioned about. I rose from my bed, walked over to the window and shut it, loudly and firmly.

  I’m not entirely sure what woke me, or what time it was, but it was late, very late, and the voices on the terrace were much quieter. I heard giggling, female giggling, and I crept over to the window and peered down. At first I thought I must be dreaming, hallucinating, and as I looked away I could feel the sound of blood rushing through my brain. Venetia Cooper, Mama’s friend, my godmother, was sitting on Henry’s lap, and from what I could make out they were canoodling. I crouched down, peering over the padded cushion of the window seat. I saw Henry’s hand move down her gown, then creep back up—onto her breast. I turned my head away. I must have made a mistake . . . I looked back, saw her stand up, take hold of his hand and lead him inside. I moved swiftly to my bedroom door, my heart pounding as I pressed my ear to it. I heard them coming up the stairs, heard them whispering as they passed by my door and headed toward the rose guest room. Then a door closed.

  I sat down on my bed, contemplating the implications of what I’d just witnessed. I felt sick. Venetia must be almost forty, I thought, and she was the mother of his friend! Did Jimmy know? I wondered. And what would Mama and Papa say? I remembered Papa saying that Hughie, Venetia’s husband, was an “exceptional shot,” and I lay down and closed my eyes.

  Your note did amuse me, not least your mention of the Grande Dame, but please don’t be too hard on her. She has such innate charm, & I do so love her colorful displays, & her ways with “les garçons.” Snob? I am not entirely sure what you mean. She certainly relishes her place with the “Smart Set,” as you call it, but surely that’s no crime? And indeed, how could it be otherwise? As for H’s devotion, I make no comment . . . YOD

  Chapter Seven

  The following morning, over breakfast, Mama received a telegram, and I remember thinking, praying, please don’t let this be about Henry and Venetia. There had been more telegrams than usual arriving at Deyning, but Papa was in London and I’d supposed them to be from him.

  Mama looked up.

  “I’m afraid it is as we’ve all feared,” she began. And I looked down at my plate of kedgeree,* for I knew what was coming, and I could hear the next sentence: Henry, my eldest, has been making love to my best friend, Venetia . . . “Germany has invaded Belgium and declared war upon France.”

  My relief was immense, and I can’t be sure now, but I think I looked up and smiled at Mama.

  “We have given an ultimatum . . . all we can do now is wait, and pray,” she added. Then she lifted her teacup. “God bless England.”

  “God bless England!” we all repeated, teacups in hand and in perfect unison.

  I looked over at Venetia, who was staring at Henry. I glanced at Edina, who looked back at me solemnly and shook her head. And then I looked at Lucy, who—it has to be said—appeared quite mystified by the announcement.

  Immediately after breakfast I walked in the grounds with Edina. And she seemed to me almost excited by the prospect of war.

  “Can you believe it? We may be at war . . . at war, by this time tomorrow!” she exclaimed, wide eyed.

  “No, I can’t believe it . . . and I don’t want to believe it. I don’t want my brothers to go and fight, Edina.”

  “But England is in danger, dear . . . we have to defend this island of ours,” she said, marching slightly ahead of me across the lawn, her head high. And I wondered who she’d been talking to, where she’d learned that line.

  “I hope that Germany sees sense,” I said, not at all sure what sense I was referring to. “And that it doesn’t come to a war. Because it will affect everything, won’t it?”

  “Well yes, I should say!”

  “Do you suppose we’ll still be able to go to Brighton?” I asked, for I was still thinking in terms of the days ahead, and our planned excursion to the coast. “I’ve been so looking forward to it.”

  “I’m not sure,” she replied. “I suppose it all de
pends. Mama says if there’s to be a war there’ll need to be a great mobilization of troops . . . and we’ll all have to do our bit.”

  “In what way? How can we do anything?”

  “Well . . . if all the men go to war, I imagine we’ll have to do all sorts of things.” She stopped. I stopped. She stared over into the trees, tapping her finger on her lips, pondering, and so I waited; waited to hear what we’d all have to do. “Drive motorcars,” she began, “do gardening . . . that sort of thing.”

  It didn’t sound like much to me, and as we moved on I said, “But Papa doesn’t garden and neither do my brothers.”

  “No, but Broughton does, and think of the under-gardeners, all the outdoor servants you have here who may have to go.”

  “Really? You think they’ll want servants as well?”

  “Yes, of course, they’ll all have to go and fight, dear.”

  It sounded slightly far-fetched to me. I wasn’t convinced Edina had her facts right. I thought of Broughton: surely he’d not be much use. He was quite old and so gentle, only interested in flowers. And he wouldn’t hurt a fly; was always rescuing injured animals. But if my cousin were right, how would we manage at Deyning without gardeners? I looked around me, across the manicured lawns to the neatly arranged borders where Frank and John were already on their knees and busy. It will all go to wrack and ruin, I thought. The whole place will become overgrown and lost in a wilderness. I looked up toward the house, the west side, and amidst a verdant tangle of Virginia creeper, jasmine and wisteria clinging to its stone façade, there was someone up a ladder there too. There were always people everywhere—attending to something.

  That day no one seemed to want to do anything at all. We simply sat about watching the minutes and hours pass by, just as though we’d all received a death sentence. Telegrams were delivered, telegrams were dispatched; and Mrs. Cuthbert, Mabel, Wilson and Mr. Broughton wore funereal faces, as though they’d already received the bad news they had sworn to keep from us.