The Last Summer

by Judith Kinghorn

  “And I’m seeing Tom later,” I interrupted.

  She stared at me. “Tom?”

  “Yes, Tom,” I replied. “We’re going out to dinner.”

  She looked away, toward the window, and then down into her lap. She lifted a hand to her hair, trying to find a stray curl to twist and tuck back in place. She turned her head to the table next to her, and then up to the wall: a square of bright color where a picture had hung.

  “Well,” she began, her head still turned away from me, “I hardly know what to say, Clarissa.”

  “You don’t have to say anything, Mama,” I replied, my voice steady, kind.

  She turned to me, fluttering her eyes shut for a moment. “So, you . . . you and Tom Cuthbert . . . you’re friends once again?”

  “Yes, we are. In fact, we’ve always been friends . . . more than friends.” I paused. “We’ve been lovers, off and on, for years, almost sixteen years, Mama.”

  She closed her eyes once more, shook her head.

  I continued. “And I’m sorry, I’m sorry if it pains you to hear this, to hear me speak about him, but I want you to know. I want to be able to be honest with you, for you to know the truth. I love him, Mama, but you know that. You know I’ve always loved him.”

  She raised a hand to her brow.

  “I’d like to have your blessing. We’d both like your blessing.”

  She didn’t speak, but kept her hand to her brow, covering her eyes as though dazzled by a very bright light somewhere close to where I sat.

  “Mama . . .”

  She lowered her hand. “I did what I thought was best, Clarissa,” she said, opening her eyes and staring down into her lap. “I did what I thought was right. It was not the way . . . not possible . . .”

  I rose from my chair, moved across the room and sat down upon the velvet ottoman in front of her. “I know, I know you did what you thought was right . . . but perhaps, perhaps in hindsight you’re able to see that it wasn’t right.” I reached out, took hold of her hand. “Look at me, look at my life. I’ve one failed, childless and unhappy marriage behind me. I have nothing, nothing to lose . . . and everything to gain. My heart has been constant, and so has his. And the world . . . the world is changed.”

  She nodded. Then she said, “And does he know? Does he know about . . .”

  “Emily. Her name was Emily, Mama,” I said. “No, no he doesn’t, not yet. But I intend to tell him. He has to know. He has a right to know.”

  “And then what?”

  “Then . . . I’m not entirely sure. But I shan’t leave him. Not for you, or anyone else.”

  She didn’t look at me and, though I waited for her to speak, she said nothing.

  “You once told me that you’d loved someone, someone other than Papa . . .”

  She sighed. “That was a long time ago,” she replied. “And it was . . . it was impossible . . .”

  “Impossible—like Tom and me?”

  She looked up at me at last, and my heart ached for her. You see, I no longer felt any anger toward her, none at all, only sadness and regret at all the years we’d lied to each other. Always pretending, bravely hanging on to the idea of what we should be, how we should be, each of us burdened by the knowledge of our hearts.

  Then she spoke. “His name was Edward,” she said, glancing away from me once more.

  “Edward,” I repeated.

  And I don’t know why or how, but at that moment a montage of images suddenly surfaced in my memory: I saw them emerging through the gateway of the walled garden, Mama smiling, turning to look up at him, reluctant to leave his side; I saw them standing together in the hothouse, discussing exhibits for a flower show, looking into each other’s eyes as though their lives depended upon some silly rosette; and I saw them once more as they disappeared down the driveway, Mama waving back at me, more animated than ever. Edina and Edward.

  Edward Broughton . . .

  And in the instant of unraveling, it all fell into place. I remembered the day we left Deyning, when Mama had wept. Her tears had never been about leaving Deyning. I thought of my arrangement with him, regarding Tom’s letters: Broughton had been my accomplice, my partner in crime. Had he been the one who’d told Mama? Had he felt duty bound to tell her? Or had he simply seen a pattern of events, a mirroring of situation and circumstance? Something he couldn’t have; something she couldn’t have.

  By the end of the war he’d disappeared from our lives forever, and I couldn’t recall my mother ever having mentioned him. But Mrs. Cuthbert had; she’d told me he’d gone back to the West Country, where he had family, and she’d spoken of that family too . . . rather well-to-do . . . he’d been the black sheep, she’d said. Now I remembered. But at the time I’d not listened, for my head had been so full of Tom, Tom and me.

  “Edward,” I said again.

  And I saw once more the King’s ring upon her finger, her wedding finger, and the initials—quite clearly now: EB. It was his ring, his signet ring. He’d given it to her, a symbol of his identity, just as surely as he’d given her his heart.

  She turned to me. “It wasn’t sordid, Clarissa. There was nothing tawdry about it.”

  “No. No, I’m sure.”

  But at that moment I thought of Papa, and felt a ripple of guilt at my mother’s duplicity. Had he known? I wondered. Had he suspected?

  “He was different . . .” she continued, wistfully. “And he cared about me, cared about me deeply . . . I was lonely, you see. Your father was away so much, and I . . . well, I enjoyed his company,” she added, glancing at me. “He was an educated man . . . without any arrogance at all.”

  I closed my eyes for a moment. Of course, I thought, of course she’d been lonely. And I had seen it, known it, and then forgotten it. That ineffable, unspeakable sadness about her had been pushed away, denied, and replaced by an enigmatic beauty, unfathomable, unreachable, and simply called Mama.

  I wanted to say the name Broughton, wanted to say it out loud and see what would happen, but I knew it had to come from her. It would have been somehow altogether wrong and inappropriate for me to speak that name, at that moment, and it seemed to belong to her now. Oh, I could have challenged her, spoken of hypocrisy and double standards, but what was the point? Nothing could alter the past, and I’d made up my mind, she knew that. I imagine that’s why she finally allowed herself to say the name. It was her way of holding out the proverbial olive branch. And though she wasn’t prepared to give up that secret entirely, she’d finally shared something of herself with me.

  She altered tempo and moved on, telling me once again that she had no regrets, that she’d loved my father first and foremost; that life was about compromise, and that we can’t always have everything we wish for. “And anyway,” she concluded, with a heavy sigh, “I had you to think of. And my children . . . have been my life.”

  I wanted to tell her about Henry, but I wasn’t sure how she’d receive the news. And yet it had to be, I had to tell her. And in that atmosphere of openness and honesty, it seemed the perfect time. So I took a deep breath, and told her that Henry was alive, and well, living in New York, and working for Tom; that Tom had been looking after him these past two years. Not surprisingly, she was startled by the news at first, and then somewhat confused. She asked me questions: how had Henry found Tom? But where, exactly, was he living? Why had he not written? When was he coming home? What did Tom say? I couldn’t tell her that it was Venetia, and not Tom, who had told me all of this. And so I said that I really didn’t know any more, but I would, of course, speak to Tom and find out Henry’s address.

  Before I left my mother that day, as I was putting on my coat and hat, she asked me to wait a moment and then left the room. When she reappeared, clutching a small tapestry bag—one with curved faux bamboo handles, which I remembered from when I was young as having been her petit point bag—she simply handed it to me without any words.

  “What’s this?” I asked, smiling. “You know I don’t sew—or embroider . .
.”

  She didn’t reply, but pointed, gesturing for me to open it.

  I unclipped the bag, peered inside, then reached into it and lifted out a handful of unopened letters. There must have been twenty or more, each one addressed to Miss C. Granville, c/o E. Broughton, 2 Stable Cottages, Deyning Park; all in Tom’s unmistakable hand. And I burst into tears at the sight of my name. For how many days and weeks and months had I waited, longing to see those words: my name and a letter from him?

  She came forward, her arms outstretched. “I’m sorry,” she said, falteringly. “Forgive me.”

  —

  We didn’t go out to dine that evening. By the time Tom arrived to collect me, I’d read all of the letters, once, twice, some three times. I’d gone back to those dark days, been with him in the trenches, and at Gallipoli, and Passchendaele. And so, that night, when I opened the door to him, saw him standing there, I fell into his arms—weeping.

  He held me, asking me over and over what had happened, then led me back to the sitting room, and sat down with me on the sofa, and I told him about my conversation with Mama, about Broughton, and about his letters—still strewn across the floor. He rose to his feet, took off his jacket and tie, gathered up a few of the letters, and sat back down with me. And with my body curled up to him, my arms wrapped around him, my face pressed against his chest, he glanced through them, and then read some in silence, and some out loud to me: “Last week, another young boy in my battalion was shot. He’d become hysterical, lost his nerve and couldn’t face going back into the line. He was tied to what was once a tree . . . a piece of white cloth pinned over his heart . . .”

  And though exhausted from that journey back in time, and from weeping, I couldn’t seem to stop crying. So he said things like, “Better late than never, eh?” and, “At least you know now that I wrote,” and commented upon his spelling and grammar—in a bid to make me smile. But I could see, I could see as he pondered on his own long-forgotten words, that it was difficult for him too; that he was being strong only for me.

  “I somehow managed to drag him through the mud and back to the trench, but he’d been hit in the stomach and for almost an hour he lay in my arms—crying for his mother. He’d told them . . . told them he was eighteen, but I very much doubt he was even sixteen . . . Norton.”

  Eventually, he picked me up and carried me through to the bedroom. He lay down next to me on the bed, his head propped in one hand, watching me.

  “Don’t look at me. I look hideous,” I said, for I’d been crying for hours and was exhausted by the emotion of that day, and the previous night.

  He shook his head. “You could never look hideous, never,” he replied, smiling at me, stroking my cheek. His touch was a balm to my senses: more blissful and calming than any morphia or pills. And for a moment I contemplated telling him then and there about the morphia, about that time, when I’d stood alone at the very edge of the abyss. I wanted him to know, and he had to know—had to know everything, all of me. But not now; I couldn’t go back there at that moment. It could wait.

  “Please . . . read some more,” I said.

  And so we lay there, together, and he read out more of his words from that time. I listened to his voice. “Home, it has become an ideal, like heaven, inhabited by angels. A place we dream about . . . and speak of and long for . . .”

  I closed my eyes, felt his hand move over my hair . . . felt myself drifting . . .

  I looked up at the ceiling. The little dark-haired girl appeared. She said, “I’m not coming down, Clarissa. I have to stay here now.”

  I opened my eyes, glanced up at him, still reading out loud, quietly.

  “Are you going to tell him? Are you going to tell him about me?”

  “Yes, yes . . . of course, but not now. A little later.”

  “You say that all the time . . .”

  “But I’m tired . . . so tired. I’ll tell him later, I promise.”

  I felt cold, opened my eyes. “Tom?”

  He was on his feet, next to me, undressing me.

  “You need to sleep,” he said.

  “Don’t go . . . don’t leave me.”

  He got down on to his knees, his face level with mine, took my head in his hands. “I’m not leaving . . . I’ll never leave you.”

  “No,” I said. “Don’t ever leave me.”

  I felt a warmth come up over me, then the tucking in; the sound of water—a tap; a click, darkness; and then his body next to me, his arms around me.

  “Tell him about me, Clarissa; you have to tell him about me.”

  “Come down . . . come down and I’ll tell him.”

  “I can’t come down. Not now. I have to stay here now.”

  And then she moved away, disappeared from view.

  Hours later, as daylight crept into the room, I was stirred by the warmth of kisses, along my shoulder, the back of my neck, my spine. I turned, and in the dim light I saw his face and knew it hadn’t been a dream. He was there, in my bed; he was with me. And when we kissed, I felt myself pulled back: I was at the boathouse by the lake; I was in the darkness of night in Hyde Park; I was in an Arabian tent, and I was his once more.

  “Promise me you’ll never leave me . . .”

  “I promise. I promise I’ll never leave you.”

  Chapter Forty-three

  We’d been to the theater, and afterward dined at the Criterion. And it was he who brought up that night in the park, the night we’d first made love. He was in a provocative mood, playful, trying to embarrass me, I think. But he couldn’t, of course. That’s one of the few benefits of aging; it becomes almost impossible to be embarrassed by one’s misspent youth, simply because we later revel in those early misdemeanors.

  “You know, you really were rather wicked,” he said, leaning forward, smiling.

  “Wicked? No, I don’t think so.”

  “Do you remember what you pushed into my pocket—that night at Jimmy’s party?”

  I smiled. “Yes . . . yes, I do.”

  He raised his eyebrows. “I shan’t tell you what happened to the garment in question.”

  “Ha! So you want me to know . . .”

  He leaned back in his chair, studying me. Then he lit a cigarette and watched it as it burned in the ashtray.

  “Well?” I said. “Are you going to tell me?”

  He glanced up at me, his head tilted to one side. Then he bit on his lip, pondering, wondering. “I must have relived that night a thousand times and more in my head.”

  “Yes, and so have I.”

  “You know, I still have your glove as well,” he said, breaking into a smile.

  But all I could think about was her, our daughter; the child conceived that night, in the middle of a war. And I knew I had to tell him. I wanted to tell him. I longed to be able to talk to someone about Emily, to speak her name out loud, at last; for her to be acknowledged by someone; and who better than her own father? But there was no way I could raise this subject in a restaurant, surrounded by people, strangers. So, when we returned to my flat, as we sat together with our nightcaps, I took that leap.

  “I need to tell you something, Tom; something about that night.”

  “Mm, what’s that, my darling?” he replied, without turning to look at me.

  “After that night, that night in the park . . .”

  “Yes . . .”

  Here it was at last, my moment. I knew I had to say the words clearly, precisely, slowly, calmly:

  “I had a baby.”

  There, that was it. I’d said it. I’d finally said it. I had a baby.

  Those four words, locked up for so long, were finally uttered. And I think he thought he’d misheard me.

  “What? Who had a baby?”

  “I did.”

  “You had a baby?”

  “Yes, yes, I did. I had a baby,” I said, eagerly, as though I’d been waiting a lifetime to confirm this fact. “We had a baby, Tom.”

  I was sitting on the very edge of my a
rmchair and he’d been lounging on the floor, his back pressed against it. He sat up, turned onto his knees and faced me, and his confusion, his shock, was palpable and seemed to fill the room.

  He looked at me: astonished, dumbstruck. “We had a baby?”

  “I had a baby,” I repeated half laughing, and beginning to cry at the same time.

  Perhaps I’d thought I could tell him, talk about it all in a perfunctory way. It had all happened so very long ago. Perhaps I’d thought I’d be able to recite dates, facts, as though I was clearing up something almost akin to a business matter.

  “I had a baby,” I said again, like a record stuck. And as I said those four words they tore open my heart, and I heard myself say them again. “I had a baby.”

  “Clarissa . . . what are you telling me? We had a child? We have a child?”

  “Yes. We had a child, Tom. I named her Emily . . . after Emily Brontë,” I added, remembering. “She was born on November the twelfth, nineteen seventeen . . . in Plymouth. She was born in Devon,” I said, trying to remember how I’d planned it; how I’d planned to tell him.

  I looked directly at him as I spoke, but as his image blurred, my head began to shake, as though I was telling him something and saying “no” at the same time.

  “A daughter? You had a baby, Clarissa?” he said, repeating words, checking facts, staring at me.

  “I had a baby,” I said again, his face barely visible. And then I heard myself say it again, and again: I had a baby . . . I had a baby . . .

  He stood up, moved to the fireplace, his back to me, and I saw him grip the marble mantelshelf. Then, suddenly, he was in front of me, and once more on his knees.

  “You had a baby,” he said, looking at me, into my eyes. “We have a child . . .”

  I nodded my head, and I couldn’t stop nodding my head. “Yes, yes, we did . . . we do,” I said.

  He stared at me, searching my face as though he’d find every answer hidden there. Then he took my head in his hands and said, “But why . . . why did I not know? Why did you not tell me this?”

  I can’t remember now what, exactly, I told him about the events of that year, but I told him everything there was to tell. Everything I could remember. I told him about my mother, Aunt Maude, Edith Collins, St. Anne’s—and the moment I’d handed over Emily. And by the time I’d finished he’d covered his face with his hands. And so I lowered myself down onto the floor and held him.