by Tracy Rees
I begin to wonder if I am impossibly naive for this is the second great astonishment I have experienced now – the third if I am to count the fact of the treasure hunt itself. Together they make me feel I hardly knew her at all. My memory of Aurelia is as open and frank as the sun on a summer day. But this gives the lie to all that.
Anyway, it continued, this love, this passion, whatever it was, right up until the time that I went away. We knew it had no future and yet we could not stop. For as long as he was there and I was there . . . it was not to be resisted. So there you see, Amy, was yet another incentive for me to go away from Hatville. The feelings between us were not dissipating and no good could come of it. I could not have borne to see him marry someone else. Yet he could not have me, and he was a young man, a good man, in need of a lovely wife. What if they had discovered us? Can you imagine what they would have done to him? He would have been dismissed, naturally. He would have been disgraced. He would not have been able to find another position, my father would have seen to that. What an extraordinary world we live in.
You know the rest of this story, Amy. There was no happy ending for me and Robin. He waited at Hatville while I travelled, to see that I came home safely, which he doubted as anxiously as you, dear, and then he left. Our separation, I believe, had given us both a much-needed perspective and besides, my decline, as you recall, was dramatic. He could not bear to stay and watch me die. I wonder how he does, Amy? I wonder if some perky Gloucestershire miss has now captured his heart?
So now let me return to Bailor. I saw him only once after I agreed to marry him and before I went away. At my parents’ invitation, he came to dine. I was pleasant and charming all evening (so he must have been suspicious). My parents left us alone after the meal.
Before he could rustle up his cloying proposal I told him I could not and would never marry him. I was prepared to tell him, if necessary, that I was no virgin. I would have said anything, Amy, but I did not need to. A man like Bailor Dunthorne knows women. He knows weakness and fear, and he saw none in me. He saw determination and dare I say desperation in my face. And he never was in love with me, after all.
I looked him steady in the eye and told him that he could continue to court me and endure the company of my parents if he wished, but that he was wasting his time, that I had lied to my parents and had no intention of keeping my promise. I told him I would make him a perfectly disgraceful wife, make his life a living Hell, and that he was far better off without me. He told me he did not doubt it for a minute. I saw him to his carriage and shook his hand for the first and only time. So much for Bailor! As for how things were settled with my parents, I shall come to that in another letter. When I left with Mrs B, they supposed me engaged.
Little bird, I wonder what you think, I wonder what you are saying to yourself now, as you read it. I wonder what you would wish you could say to me, if anything.
And now, dear Amy, now to the next part of your journey. I am sure you do not wish to leave Twickenham; I am so sorry that you must. But, my dear, there is more that you must learn and so I send you on. You are soon to meet Mrs X, and for this I can only apologize.
She is an older lady to be sure, and I do have a fear that she will go and die before you reach her, for she is a contrary old bird and that is just the sort of thing she would do! However, she has assured me stoutly of her intention to live for ever so I suppose I shall just have to keep faith, as I am asking you to do. You shall stay with her for three weeks. I have no doubt that it will at times seem interminable.
My heart sinks. This does not sound so very promising.
However, three weeks is not so very long, and there are delights aplenty where you are going. It is a very old and beautiful city with much to stimulate an agile and questioning mind like yours.
I do not include her address with this letter for, together with my revelation about Robin, these are two pieces of information too weighty and important to hide together. I may still be over-cautious and putting you to unnecessary trouble. It is only that as I write, an imaginary scenario plays in my head in which my parents come after you for some reason, stumble upon one of my letters and understand that there is more to my story than they knew. Likely ’tis but fancy and you are cursing me roundly. But I cannot take the risk. Here is your clue, dearest:
Daisy and cowslip nod side by side,
Kingfisher blue darts and glides,
Watches over you when you dream,
Knots and tangles stitch a scene
Rural fair and quite serene,
Green, where lady’s secret hides.
’Tis not my best literary effort, I know. But I have quite exhausted myself with the scheming and the plotting. After all, I am only a poor delicate female!
I close tonight with a heavy heart because I have told you a great unburdening, yet cannot see your face. And because I am asking a great deal of you, I know it. And because I am nearing the end of what I must tell you and then there will be no more letters. Although I will be dead and gone when that time comes, you will not, and I miss you already. So be it. This is what life has dealt us. I must be brave, for you are being a good deal braver, I have no doubt.
With great love and affection from your devoted
AV
I throw off the bed sheets once more, for I suddenly feel smothered and snagged by their weight. Aurelia keeping such secrets from me. Aurelia lying to her parents, saying whatever it took to gain her freedom. Aurelia disclosing all that I didn’t know before – yet by such a circuitous and mystifying route. A liaison with the gardener is a great and shocking secret indeed – at least it would be considered so at Hatville. But she has told me that now. What more can there possibly be?
At last I rouse myself. I have sat so motionless and for so long that a fly has come to settle on my nose. I brush it off in annoyance and realize it is time to act. I climb from bed, brush my hair, lay out some clothes, everyday tasks that have no meaning and yet reorientate me in my life. My life. I hardly know what that is any more. It was always so bound up with Aurelia’s that if one is called into question the other must necessarily be undermined also. And now I am to travel on, into another new and uncertain landscape. I yank a chemise over my head so sharply I hear a small rip. Aurelia is right; I would not choose to leave, if choice were mine to exercise. I must do so only because of her command. A flushed face emerges from the white cotton and scowls at me in the mirror.
I will continue until September, I tell myself suddenly. That will be nine months from Aurelia’s death. I will obey her, and go where she bids me and do as she tells me. And then, whether I have learned the secret or not, whether I have reached the end of the trail or not, I will stop. I will go and live wherever I please and do whatever I choose. Nine months is long enough to give up one’s life to someone else, even someone beloved. It is not that I expect to stop missing or mourning her, but I am still alive!
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Thus resolved, I dress and turn myself to the task at hand. I am surprised to realize that I know exactly where to find the name and address of ‘Mrs X’. The canopy above my bed is a tapestry. Its ‘knots and tangles’ show a meadow scene with, yes, daisies and cowslips and a kingfisher. I cannot believe I have been sleeping for two whole months in such close proximity to the answer. ‘Right under my nose,’ goes the saying. In this case, it was above my head.
I throw back the bed covers and stand on the bed. I can just reach the canopy.
‘Green, where lady’s secret hides.’ In a long swathe of mossy green I see some loose, loopy stitches with a little white showing through. I lie down again. Now I know it’s there, I can still see that tiny, telltale sliver of white. I would never have noticed it before. It is extraordinary how the human mind sees what it anticipates and is blind to anything that could not be dreamed of.
Standing again, I pluck carefully at the note, and it slides out. I smooth the wool back and jump off the bed with a surprising thud. A small piece o
f paper, folded in half. It is a jumble of letters with a little shovel drawn in the top left-hand corner.
I find a clean sheet of paper and a pencil, then sit at my table with warm sunlight falling onto my face. I study the cipher for a minute or two. It is very easy. Aurelia and I had three codes we used as children and this is the simplest of them. Our crib sheet was to write the alphabet in two columns abreast: A–M and N–Z. The code letter was the letter before that which sat diagonally opposite the real letter. Thus A became Y, B became X and so on. For numbers, we simply reversed double figures and left single figures unchanged. I know the code off by heart, even though it is many years since we used it. I swiftly translate my destination
Mhg Yhqyvlu Hqduhfrkhju
Ryvug Rkegu
43 Huxuwwy Gfhuuf
(lh Ieuul Gieyhu)
Xyfr
as
Mrs Ariadne Riverthorpe
Hades House
34 Rebecca Street
(nr Queen Square)
Bath
Bath. I should be pleased: From Twickenham, Aurelia went to Derby. She was not in Bath until the very end of her travels. I had supposed the trail would take me next to Derby and now I feel I am leapfrogging over a great many cities and long weeks of travel. Aurelia did say in her letter that the end of the trail is close at hand. Perhaps Bath, then, is the last place I must go. But I have felt ill-disposed towards Bath ever since those awful months when Aurelia was embroiled there with Frederic Meredith – when I had lost hope that she would ever come home.
A new question strikes me. What part did Mr Meredith really play in her affections, I wonder. Had her feelings for Robin so diminished in the intervening months? Or was Mr Meredith her attempt to steer her inclinations in a direction more likely to please her parents? Did that attempt fail dismally, and was that why she was so reluctant to talk about him when she came home? Perhaps I shall find out in Bath. Even so, I cannot muster any enthusiasm for going there.
Her letters did not paint a picture that held any allure for me. I know Bath to be vastly fashionable and sophisticated. True, it is a ‘very old and very beautiful city’ but Twickenham is quite old and beautiful enough for me. I do not wish to spend three weeks in a world of balls and beaux and bonnets. These things may be enjoyable with a friend but not when navigated alone. I do not think that elderly Mrs Riverthorpe of Hades House, about whom even Aurelia ‘can only apologize’, will make a likely ally. After Twickenham, the prospect is a lonely one.
A name and address make leaving real. I have bolted from Ladywell to London and London to Twickenham without any forethought or planning, like a shuttlecock knocked back and forth. I shall handle this departure differently. I shall pen a brief note to Mrs Riverthorpe, alerting her that Miss Amy Snow will follow it in a day or two. Then I shall ask Edwin to advise me about my travel arrangements and help me decide what I can safely say to the others. No matter what tender emotions trouble me at leaving Twickenham, my promise to Aurelia compels me and I remain, besides, vastly curious.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Edwin arranges everything. I am to leave Twickenham the following day, in the Wisters’ carriage. Their coachman, William, is to drive me. He will be accompanied by his brother Jack, so that when I arrive at Hades House there will be two young men to lift the handles of my enormous trunk. I will have nothing to do but wave my parasol and straighten my gloves. I hope Aurelia, if she is watching over me, will forgive this minor violation of her secrecy. I have accepted that things must be difficult for a time; I do not wish them to be impossible.
The journey from Twickenham to Bath is some one hundred and twenty miles, the longest I have yet taken. By road it will be too far to travel in one day. Breaking the journey overnight at Marlborough is the ideal solution; Edwin knows of an excellent coaching inn there.
Edwin also saves me the difficult task of telling everyone that I am leaving. That night, the entire family sits down to dinner together. He has even secured the presence of his mother-in-law, an achievement akin to pinning down a spinning sycamore in an autumn gust.
A veritable feast, served à la française, is laid out for us in the plum and fir-green-striped dining room. I suspect that Edwin has alerted Constance (and Constance has alerted Bessy) that something momentous is brewing. The candelabra have been lit, even though it is not dark, lending a festive glimmer to the best china and the copper tureens. The warm colours and soft light, the dear heads bent over steaming bowls, fill me with an unbearable degree of nostalgia before I have even left.
When the soup plates have been passed around and Bessy has retired – and after a decent interval’s slurping – Edwin speaks up. Despite being cushioned between mulligatawny and asparagus, the news is received with widespread dismay.
We have agreed to tell the truth but an abbreviated version. It sits easier with me than fabricating a story, or vanishing with no explanation whatsoever. So Edwin announces that I must leave the next day to carry out business for Aurelia – confidential business that I have been asked not to discuss with anyone. He instructs his children not to ask me any questions or demand any promises because I am very sad to be leaving and need their support. My throat fills so that I cannot swallow. I hang my head over my beef, dreading to look up and meet their eyes, though I do at last.
‘But you will come back and stay with us again, won’t you, Amy?’ asks Priscilla, looking so distressed and confused I can hardly bear it.
‘Yes, she will, most definitely,’ says Edwin. We have not discussed it but he has obviously made up his mind for both of us. Hearing him say it, I am prepared to believe it. ‘We do not know when, however.’
‘And will you be quite all right, dear?’ asks Constance. ‘Can we do anything for you? Is there anything you need to take?’
Dear Constance. As if they have not already given me so very much.
*
If the dinner was difficult, my leave-taking the following morning is worse. Saying goodbye to the girls undoes me completely. Knowing I will not see their pretty, good faces again for an unknowable time is a wrench second only to losing Aurelia. I cannot bear to think that when Madeleine receives her proposal I will not be there to congratulate her. Although we are all very courageous, it is a relief to weep with them a little.
Alone in the carriage, I feel I must be sleepwalking. I hold back my tears to present a brave face as I wave and smile at the Wister clan, who are massed at the gate like lupins. They wave and stand on their toes and their wide smiles are every bit as unconvincing as my own must be. My composure trembles as we roll off and I crane my neck for every last glimpse of dear Twickenham.
As we rattle along King Street, I remember Mr Garland depositing me there at the start of February. If he has returned from his business in Edinburgh I have not heard from him, and I have no address to which I could send a note of farewell. It is another acquaintance rudely severed by Aurelia’s treasure hunt and I regret it.
*
Between Whitton and Windsor I give way completely and sob most heartily. Then I brace myself and acknowledge that the time to be brave has come again. I permit myself today’s carriage ride to reminisce about Twickenham and relive my goodbyes. Tomorrow’s I must spend preparing myself mentally for Bath. There is only one direction I can go and it is not back.
It was Michael to whom Aurelia had entrusted her letter – so I have learned this morning. I had suspected Constance, Madeleine or Bessy.
When Bessy came to say goodbye, she gave me a handkerchief that she had embroidered with my initials, AS. I take it out now and run my thumb over the silky lilac stitches. She had so little time to finish it, yet they show no sign of hurry; they are tiny and delicate – a clear demonstration of care and friendship.
Society would not approve. Aurelia and Robin, Aurelia and Amy, Amy and Bessy – combinations of people who should have nothing to say to each other, yet with hearts that do not recognize it.
‘Was it you, Bessy?’ I asked her impe
tuously this morning.
‘Was it me what?’ she said.
But as Michael hugged me farewell, he looked troubled. ‘It’s not too late, is it?’ he whispered.
‘Too late for what?’
‘For Aurelia’s business. Only she said two months, and I waited a while longer. I liked Aurelia very much, Amy, and I made her a promise. I didn’t want to let her down. I did keep the secret ever so well. So I hope the extra week don’t make a difference.’
‘I am certain it won’t, Michael. Please don’t worry. Only, why did you wait, if I may ask?’
‘Well, I like you every bit as much as Aurelia, Amy. Every bit! She went away too soon as well, disappeared all of a sudden, just like you.’ He frowns at the memory. ‘I wanted to keep you a while longer. Truth be told, I wondered about never giving you the letter and keeping you for good, but I knew that would be wrong. Only I did so want you to come to my party on Eel Pie before you went.’
I laughed. I want to keep him too. I also wanted to ask him what he meant about Aurelia leaving suddenly – as far as I knew, she left exactly when she had planned to – but we were interrupted by the arrival of his grandmother. She brooked no nonsense when my brave veneer wavered and told her I never wanted to leave, never wanted anything to change.
‘Life is change, Amy, and this place is changing as much as anything. It’s not the same as it was fifty years ago, or even ten! Houses going up, houses coming down. Public houses going up and coming down, though there are more of those going up than closing, to be sure. Later this year the railway will reach Twickenham. Even if you stayed, the Twickenham you love today would be different in a year and in ten years and twenty. We can’t hold onto things. Time is like the river. It carries us off, and faster than we would like, most often.’
