The Forget-Me-Not Sonata

by Santa Montefiore

  ‘I’ll wait as long as you want.’ He took her hand between his but the glove was one more barrier that prevented him from recovering their closeness.

  Audrey shook her head. ‘I don’t know how long it’s going to be. I’m their only daughter now. I can’t disappoint them.’

  Unable to contain his exasperation Louis’ face suddenly crumpled with fury. ‘What about me?’ His voice echoed against the walls of the church. ‘Don’t I mean anything to you any more?’

  She swiftly swivelled around and took both his hands in hers. ‘Of course you do. I love you.’

  ‘Then follow your heart.’

  ‘And break the hearts of all those I care about? I can’t. Not now.’

  ‘What about your dreams?’

  ‘I’m afraid to dream, Louis, because my dreams will cause so much pain.’

  Louis sat back and stared bleakly out in front of him. It was cold. He shivered. Suddenly he felt as if it were Audrey who was dead and not Isla. His mouth twisted to a thin crescent of despair. He had lived most of his life without love and barely noticed, but now having basked in the radiance of Audrey’s love he didn’t know how he would survive without it. His future was slowly being swallowed by a swirling grey fog and all he could do was watch it go. There seemed to be no redemption.

  ‘So that’s it then?’ he asked in a hollow voice. The battle had been fought and he had lost.

  ‘Oh, Louis, please don’t sound so defeated,’ she implored him. ‘I can’t think clearly now. Just give me some time, that’s all.’

  ‘For what?’ He shrugged his shoulders. ‘You said so yourself, you can’t disappoint your family. I’m obviously a huge disappointment.’

  ‘Louis . . .’

  ‘No, don’t, I always have been. I disappointed my parents and Cecil. I seem to disappoint wherever I go. Well, I won’t hang around to disappoint yours.’

  ‘Louis, don’t talk like this. You’re overreacting.’

  ‘Overreacting? I love you, Audrey, that’s all I’m guilty of. Of loving you.’ His eyes burned with passion and pain and he longed to have the confidence to persevere. But to Louis everything was either black or white. She either loved him or she didn’t. There was no in between. And besides, he was now on the defensive. With the strongest will in the world he couldn’t have abated his impatience, that rose up to consume him.

  ‘And I love you too, Louis. I love you so much it hurts,’ she choked. ‘But my sister is dead. My beautiful, vibrant Isla is gone. Do you understand? She’s never coming back. How can I think of myself when she is dead?’

  ‘Because you have to think of the living now.’

  ‘Now? Today?’ She gasped in horror, searching his features in an attempt to understand him. His impatience and selfishness astounded her. ‘Perhaps tomorrow, or the day after. But today? How can I think of anyone else but Isla?’

  ‘I love you enough to fill the void her death has created.’

  ‘No one will ever fill that void. Not even you, Louis my love. Not even you.’

  ‘Let me try.’

  ‘Then give me time. Let us all come to terms with this terrible tragedy.’

  ‘But nothing is going to change. Your family will always find me eccentric. I can’t be what I’m not. I can’t be a Cecil; it’s not in my nature. They’ll never embrace me as their son-in-law and I’ll never settle for anything else, Audrey.’

  ‘Let’s not talk about this now. Please, Louis, let’s talk about this when we’ve had time to come to terms with Isla’s death.’ She wanted to add that she needed his comfort not his demands but he looked so fragile she feared he might do himself harm so she remained silent, wondering where the Louis she knew and loved had gone.

  But Louis interpreted her request as a veiled way of delaying the agony. She no longer wanted him and he no longer wanted to be around her, so great was the sting of her rejection.

  Audrey begged him to accompany her home for the tea but he insisted on returning to the Club. Audrey knew that he would go straight to the piano and play the most doleful tune he was capable of. She was envious that he had a means of venting his emotions, she longed to convert the agony of her soul into beautiful music but all she could do was cry. She watched him leave, then wrapping her coat about her she hurried home through the icy gale feeling as hollow as a husk.

  She looked about her at the bare winter trees and the pale, watery sky and remembered how Isla had cared little for the beauty of Nature. She had barely seemed to notice it. And yet they had understood each other perfectly in spite of the vast differences that would have divided other siblings. She recalled her sense of fun and her wicked humour, the interest she took in the intrigues of other people’s lives and how she longed to whip them all up into a lather of indignation. Well, she had certainly whipped everyone up today, but not in the way that she would have intended. As Audrey gazed upon the craggy old trees she thought of Isla, eternally young, while she and the rest of the living would slowly grow old.

  Isla’s image dominated Audrey’s thinking, squeezing out any thoughts of Louis like a mischievous cuckoo. As much as Louis’ demands had unsettled her she didn’t have enough energy to dedicate to him and his heartbreak. She felt numb and raw and very, very tired. All she wanted to do was curl up beneath the covers of her bed and sleep her way out of her misery. It had been unfair of Louis to try to force her hand when she was so obviously distracted. If she had had more strength she would have felt anger, but all she could muster was a frail disappointment.

  She arrived home to find Cecil anxiously waiting for her. The sitting room resonated with the sombre voices of friends and family who had come to give solace to Rose and Henry but Audrey couldn’t face them; instead she allowed Cecil to accompany her into the garden. It was dark and the garden lay still and frozen and unforgiving as if in protest at Isla’s death. Audrey couldn’t imagine a spring without her and her heart was filled once again with an aching sadness. ‘Oh Cecil, I feel so desperate,’ she said as they walked beneath the black, starless sky. ‘The pain of the soul is so much worse than the pain of the body. I can’t imagine I’ll ever heal.’ She hung her head and her face crumpled again with grief. Cecil, overcome with pity, turned and drew her into his arms. Audrey was too tired to resist. To her surprise it was just what she needed and she let her head rest against his chest and her body derive some comfort from his warm and protective embrace. He held her there and let her vent her anger and sorrow into the icy wind until she had no more strength to cry.

  ‘You two were closer than any siblings I’ve ever known. It’s like losing your right arm, isn’t it?’ Cecil said in a gentle voice. Audrey nodded and sniffed. ‘Death is a tragedy even in the old,’ he continued. ‘But at least they have lived a full life, dear Isla was still a child with all her life in front of her. It makes me spit with anger. At times like this I wonder if there is a God.’ Audrey was surprised to hear Cecil speak with such passion.

  ‘I believe in God. It was Isla’s time to go,’ she replied. ‘I know she’s in Heaven. I really believe that. I shall miss her so much, that’s all. I can’t imagine life without her. I’m crying for myself.’

  ‘You won’t be without her. If you believe she’s in Heaven, then she’s a spirit, as Louis would say, and she’ll be with you in spirit.’ Audrey thought of Louis and felt guilty for allowing herself to be comforted so intimately by his brother. But then she remembered Louis’ inappropriate demands and his selfish behaviour that made Cecil’s sympathy all the more touching.

  ‘I can’t marry you, Cecil,’ she said without thinking. ‘My heart is elsewhere.’ Cecil patted her back and smiled. ‘Of course you can’t and your heart shouldn’t be anywhere else but here with Isla. I understand, my dear Audrey. You shouldn’t even be thinking of it. My proposal couldn’t be further from my thoughts. At a time like this? Do you really take me for a heartless fool?’

  Audrey was suddenly overcome with gratitude. ‘You’re not a heartless fool. You’re the kinde
st, sweetest man I have ever met.’

  ‘Think no more about it. Let time heal your pain. Then one day, when you feel ready to face the future again, ponder on it a little. I won’t mention it again. But I’ll wait for you as long as you want.’

  ‘Thank you, Cecil,’ she croaked, drawing away from him and pulling a hanky out of her coat pocket. ‘You’re a very kind man,’ she said again, seeing a different side to the person she had always thought of as cold. Fish do feel, she thought, remembering Isla’s wicked comment, and blew her nose.

  When Cecil returned to the Club, he found Louis slumped over the piano, delirious with alcohol and regret. ‘I’ve lost the one woman I shall ever love,’ he mumbled without opening his eyes to the cruel light of the real world.

  ‘I’m so sorry, Louis, I didn’t realize,’ said Cecil kindly, patting him on his back. So the Colonel had been right all along, Louis had indeed lost his heart to Isla.

  ‘You don’t know the half of it, you fool!’ Louis snapped drunkenly. Then laughed the high-pitched laugh of a madman.

  ‘You’ll feel better in the morning,’ Cecil sighed, dragging his brother to his feet. He could no longer count the times he had helped him stagger up that wooden staircase and into his small room to undress him like a sick child. Cecil wondered whether he’d ever be free of the responsibility.

  ‘Only death can liberate me from such a hell,’ he slurred.

  ‘Come on, Louis, you’ll love again, old boy,’ Cecil tried to reassure him, but his patience was wearing thin.

  ‘I’ll never love again. She’s an angel, there’s none other like her.’

  ‘She is an angel. She’s with God.’ Louis looked at him in puzzlement. Cecil frowned. ‘Time is a great healer,’ he continued. This infuriated Louis even more.

  ‘Time! That’s what she wanted too. Time is what I don’t have.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Cecil asked, pulling off his brother’s shoes and socks.

  ‘I don’t want to be here if I can’t have her. It’ll kill me.’

  ‘Everyone feels like you do today. We all feel bereft, but we can’t run away from our pain.’

  ‘She’s dead to me now. I might as well leave.’

  ‘Where to?’

  ‘I’ll go wherever the winds take me.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Cecil retorted, helping Louis into his pyjamas.

  ‘I’m leaving to forget.’

  ‘What will you do?’

  ‘Die of a broken heart.’ He laughed again, but this time his laughter was empty and hopeless.

  ‘For goodness’ sake,’ his brother chided him gently, tucking him into his bed. ‘You won’t even remember you said that in the morning.’

  But in the morning Louis was gone. Cecil searched the room for some indication of where he had gone and for how long he intended to be away. But he had taken all his belongings with him, except a note, which he had left on the dresser for his brother to find.

  Cecil picked it up and opened it. Slowly he read what Louis had written. As his eyes scanned the page his face turned pale and his lips twitched. He inhaled deeply then proceeded to read it again. After a while he sat down in thought, turning the little piece of paper over and over in his fingers. Finally he returned to his own room. There he folded it up and placed it in a polished walnut box he used for locking away things of great importance. Stiffening his shoulders and straightening his back he walked purposefully over to Canning Street to tell Rose and her family. I survived the war, I can survive this, he thought to himself. But he knew the greatest challenge of his life awaited him.

  Chapter 10

  Louis’ sudden disappearance only confirmed what everyone had suspected: that he and Isla had been in love. But because Isla was dead and above criticism their clandestine relationship wasn’t reviewed with horror; on the contrary, it was seen as a romantic tragedy of Shakespearean proportions and Louis, the grieving lover, was respected in a way that would never have otherwise been possible. If he had been worthy of Isla’s affection, they deduced, he must be a very special human being indeed. Unwittingly she had salvaged his reputation, but Louis was unaware of it, sitting miserably on the drizzly deck of a freight ship bound for Mexico.

  Rose wept copious tears when she heard the news from Cecil who had hurried over to Canning Street at the first light of dawn. ‘He loved my Isla?’ she snivelled, crumbling into an armchair in her dressing gown. ‘I thought I knew everything about my daughter’s life, but I didn’t. I’ve been monstrously unfair to dear Louis. Isla loved him and if dear Isla loved him then I love him too.’

  ‘He left a note explaining that he couldn’t bear to be in the same country if he couldn’t have her love,’ Cecil explained, his face grim. ‘Louis isn’t like other people,’ he continued earnestly. ‘But he’s a good person. I think he’ll regret leaving and be back. Last night he was distraught. We are all distraught and no one more so than you, Rose, and your family. But as I said, Louis is different. He doesn’t think things through. He’s all feeling and no thought. I told him time would ease his suffering. He can’t cope when things go wrong for him. I feel desperate. Before Isla died I don’t think I’d ever seen him looking so happy and well. He was a very different Louis.’ Cecil looked away and wiped his forehead with a hanky. He felt very strange, as if he were made of air.

  ‘I so hope he comes back, I really do,’ said Rose. ‘I would dearly love to hear about their friendship. I hate to think there’s a part of my daughter’s life I haven’t shared. Oh, Cecil, do you really think he might come back?’

  At that moment Audrey walked in. She too was in her dressing gown with her long curls in disarray about her shoulders and down her back to her waist. Cecil caught his breath because he had never seen her look more beautiful. He was at once energized with determination. But Audrey felt depleted and empty as if someone had sucked out all her insides leaving the wound raw and aching. ‘Who’s gone?’ she asked impassively, wrapping her arms around her body in a subconscious attempt to comfort herself. Cecil hesitated, disarmed by her vulnerability.

  ‘Did you know that Isla was in love with Louis?’ Rose asked with impatience.

  ‘Isla in love with Louis?’ Audrey repeated in confusion. ‘No she wasn’t.’

  ‘Yes, dear, she was. Cecil’s got his note to prove it. Now he’s left us. He told Cecil that he can’t bear to be in the Argentine if she’s not here. What a passionate young man.’

  ‘Louis has gone?’ she gasped in horror, finding it difficult to breathe. She turned to Cecil in panic.

  ‘I’m afraid he left this morning,’ he replied. Audrey sat down and dissolved into tears. Cecil wanted to hold her again like he had after the funeral, but he knew such a gesture would be unwelcome.

  ‘My dear child,’ her mother soothed, reaching out to her. ‘This has come as a terrible shock to us all. A part of Isla none of us knew. I must say, I would have thought she would have confided in you.’ But Audrey was unable to contain her sorrow.

  ‘Where has he gone?’ she sobbed.

  ‘England, I think,’ Cecil replied. Then he heard himself saying, ‘I should think he’ll be back when he calms down. He was very overwrought last night. He had also drunk too much. I should imagine he’ll come to his senses when he sobers up. Don’t despair, he’ll be back, I’m sure of it.’ But he was only sure of one thing, that whatever happened now there was no turning back.

  Audrey ran upstairs and when she was alone in the bathroom she vomited. How could he leave like that, without even saying goodbye, without at least giving her an explanation? If he loved her, how could he leave her to suffer like this? Then she recalled Cecil’s words and with desperation she clutched the small grain of hope. Perhaps he would come to his senses and return when he realized that she was worth waiting for. When he realized that all was not lost. Then she blamed herself. How could she have been so insensitive to his feelings? After all, he needed her too. She had only been thinking of herself.

  ‘You see,
I was right all along,’ said Charlo happily, studying her cards through her glasses. ‘That Isla was a mischief.’

  ‘A very dear mischief,’ Diana added, pulling a sympathetic smile.

  ‘Well, we were all wrong about Louis Forrester,’ said Cynthia. ‘I’m happy to admit when I’m wrong.’

  ‘Me too,’ interjected Phyllida, fingering her cards nervously. She wasn’t very good at bridge and every time they sat down for a rubber she felt like a fly about to be devoured by three very large lizards. She cringed and blinked down at her own useless hand of cards.

  ‘Oh, I was never wrong about Louis,’ Charlo retorted. ‘He’s reckless and irresponsible and always will be.’

  ‘Oh, you twisty turny thing!’ Cynthia objected, placing her deck face down on the table. ‘You said he was mad!’

  ‘No, Cynthia dear, you said he was mad.’

  ‘At least I have the decency to admit it, Charlo, you devil. He’s not mad, nor is he callous. He’s a truly romantic figure and there aren’t many of them around nowadays.’ Cynthia snorted at Charlo. Charlo lifted her chin and snorted back.

  ‘No, because I buried three of them,’ she said and laughed at her own tasteless joke.

  ‘I hope the fourth buries you!’

  ‘Really,’ interrupted Diana in a gentle voice. ‘We were all very wrong about Louis and now he’s gone. I feel desperately sorry for him, poor young man. There’s nothing more painful than a broken heart.’

  ‘Quite,’ said Phyllida, delighted that the argument was delaying the game.

  ‘We shall all miss Isla dreadfully.’

  ‘Dreadfully,’ Phyllida repeated.

  ‘Don’t worry, Audrey will marry Cecil and that will give us all good reason to smile again,’ said Charlo.

  ‘Or you’ll marry the Colonel and that will give us all good reason to laugh again,’ Cynthia added with a wicked grin. But Charlo didn’t laugh. A frown swept across her powdered brow. There was something different about Colonel Blythe. A sentimental look in his eyes, a faraway expression, a softening of the voice and a sad tune he kept humming to himself. She dared hope that the change in him might have been inspired by her. But she wasn’t going to share her thoughts. They’d mock her if she revealed an uncharacteristic soppiness. ‘You may be laughing sooner than you think,’ she challenged. Cynthia stared at Charlo with her mouth agape.