The Memory of Lost Senses

by Judith Kinghorn

  “So sad.”

  “Yes, it was a difficult, painful time, for me—for all of us. He left a young wife, Cassandra, and of course little Jack, only weeks old. I was in Rome . . . I returned here, of course. As soon as I received the telegram I left Rome and returned here as fast as I could. But I was too late.” She lowered her head. “We buried him in the snow . . .” she said quietly, “we buried him in the snow as his father passed away.”

  “His father?”

  She looked up at Cecily. “Godfather,” she said. And then she glanced once more across the room, toward the bronze head in the alcove. “They stay with us, of course. Departure from this life, death of the physical body, is not an end. We merely cast off the trappings of this realm for another. The soul is immortal. I know this now.”

  Cecily nodded.

  “And yet, ’tis the queerest thing,” she began again, quietly, “to find myself here, at this age, in this place. Peculiar to find oneself anywhere, to still be here, when those one has known are all gone.” She turned to Cecily. “But of course I have Jack to think of,” she said, in a louder, firmer voice, and picked up her glass. “He is the future and all that matters to me now. And he’s a darling, darling boy, so very like his grandfather in looks and thought and deed. And that is my comfort. It’s what we leave behind us that defines who we have been, not our birth date, or death date, nor whom we married or where we were born. Those are the facts, of course, the details, but they’re minor details, they mean nothing on their own, tell nothing of the story of a person’s life. What made one’s heart quicken, what one saw, how one felt; the decisions made, the regrets: all of this is lost, forgotten. And when one reaches my age, ’tis hard to recall one’s early life and first impressions.”

  Without thinking, Cecily said, “And what are your earliest memories?”

  The countess tilted her head to one side. “My earliest memories . . .” she said, turning away with eyes half-closed, “my earliest memories are of a place called Standen Hall, a place in Suffolk. It is where I lived before I went to Paris, before my mother”—she paused—“before my mother departed.”

  “What was it like?” Cecily asked, leaning forward in her chair.

  “It lies a few miles to the west of Woodbridge, off the old London road. And you know, I can picture it now, the view from a carriage window. One passed through an immense gated entrance with a towered gatehouse to the right and headed down a long, long winding driveway, through breathtaking woodland and gardens, and then the vast red-brick Tudor sprawl came into view—the tallest chimneys you ever saw. There was an enormous front door, easily as large as any of the grand doorways in Rome, which opened directly into the oak-paneled medieval great hall. I recall suits of armor, stag’s heads mounted high up upon the walls, and a vast wooden staircase rising up to galleried landings lined with portraits. It was truly a splendid place.”

  Cecily smiled. “Home.”

  The countess nodded and smiled.

  “And you never went back?”

  “No. Never. Once my parents were gone . . . well, there was nothing left for me there, no one left. And my life had moved on. I was in Paris, and then Rome, and then married with children. It was impossible to go back, and there was no reason to go back. Life moves on and we must move with it,” she added, smiling, weary.

  “Sad. Sad for you, ma’am, to have had to leave everything behind.”

  “Please, no more ‘ma’am.’ Cora. My name is Cora.”

  Later, as Cecily strolled back down the track, she felt quite different to the person who had marched up the hill only hours earlier. The fortified wine had undoubtedly mellowed her senses, but it was more than this: there was something new and altered in everything around her, and within her. As though the world—and herself with it—had passed through a spectrum. She knew that nothing would ever be the same; nothing could ever be or seem as it had earlier that day, or before that day. And though the ground felt softer, like a cushion beneath her feet, and the sun, now exposed and still high in the sky, spilled out upon that dark umber carpet in soft slanting rays, something inexplicably sad had attached itself to her, and she felt its burden.

  The atmosphere within the room she had just left had been peculiarly insulated, and not just from the heat and light of the day, but from everything, almost from time itself. Three whole hours had passed by in a flash, and in those three hours she had had a glimpse of a life, a different life. A door had opened—an inch, no more—and she had been allowed to step forward and look through it—for a moment, no more. But in that moment, in that glimpse, how much she had seen. Time had slipped away, and she and the countess had been equals, had spoken as friends.

  And before Cecily left they had made a pact.

  “I’m a very private person, Cecily. I would prefer you to keep these things we’ve discussed to yourself. I’d like to think I could trust you.”

  “Of course, I wouldn’t dream of betraying your trust, Cora.”

  “I knew . . . knew we were going to be good friends, you and I. And there’s something else, something I’d like you to do for me, Cecily, a small favor.”

  Cecily nodded.

  “You must mention this to no one, no one at all,” she said, “not even to Jack. In fact, most especially not to Jack. It’s to do with the man at Meadow Farm,” she began.

  Chapter Nine

  It was late Saturday morning. The village was busier than usual, and noisy. And temperatures were running high. The horse-drawn van of the baker, the butcher’s bang-tailed cob and the omnibus to Linford—already running ten minutes late—were locked in dispute and remained stationary, surrounded by bleating sheep being moved from one parched field to another by way of the main street. As the bus driver—coerced, Sylvia presumed, by his hot and impatient passengers—honked on his horn and shouted, she and others had spilled out from the post office to watch tempers fly.

  Sylvia had already been to the Sale of Work at the village hall, but when she spotted Cecily emerge from the festooned doorway of the hall into the maelstrom she had waved her hand. But Cecily appeared to see nothing, least of all Sylvia. She marched off at some speed, weaving her way through the livestock, which was running this way and that and up the wrong lane. As Cecily disappeared, Sylvia too had moved on, through the stupid animals, holding her bag aloft. Once clear, on the decline to the ford and with Cecily in sight once more, Sylvia quickened her pace. She called out, twice, and both times Cecily stopped, just as though she had heard her name. But she failed to turn and simply marched on. And when, eventually, Sylvia caught up with her, Cecily had been unusually abrupt.

  “Oh, hello, Miss Dorland,” she said flatly, and sounding quite put out, Sylvia thought.

  They had stood for a while in one spot, while Sylvia caught her breath.

  “I hear . . . I hear you’re to dine with us . . . later,” Sylvia said, fanning her face with her hand.

  “We’re supposed to be, yes,” Cecily replied, in the same cold voice.

  She had not reckoned on Cecily Chadwick being a moody sort, not at all. Something must have happened, Sylvia thought, for her to be so . . . so rude.

  “Is anything the matter, dear? You seem a little out of sorts, if I may say.”

  Cecily shook her head. “It’s nothing,” she said, without meeting Sylvia’s eyes.

  As they began to walk, Sylvia told her that she, too, had been to the sale earlier, and they stopped again as Sylvia produced the woven bookmark and bag of potpourri she had bought for her friend.

  “Oh yes, I’m sure Cora will like them,” Cecily said, barely looking at the things.

  At first, Sylvia thought she had imagined Cecily saying the name.

  “Cora?” she repeated.

  “Mm. I’m sure she’ll like them.”

  Cecily moved on, but Sylvia remained fixed, the bookmark and muslin bag in her outstretched hands
, and a strange giddy feeling, which tilted the pathway ahead. For a moment she thought she might faint. And when Cecily turned, looking back down the hill at her with a queer smile, she appeared to Sylvia rather smug, even triumphant.

  She put away her gifts and continued up the hill toward Cecily. “So, you’ve been up to the house . . . been to call on her?” she asked.

  But Cecily appeared not to hear her. She stared straight ahead, a look of concentration furrowing her brow. And so Sylvia rephrased the question: “I take it you’ve seen the countess recently?”

  “Oh yes,” Cecily said, and then added—a little defensively, Sylvia thought—“You were in London.”

  “Ah, when Mr. Fox was also there?”

  “No. There was only me,” Cecily replied.

  But Cora had made no mention to Sylvia of Cecily’s visit. She had mentioned only that the rector had called on her. And Sylvia had become increasingly suspicious of that man. To Sylvia’s mind, he seemed uncommonly interested in Cora’s life. She was worried that her friend, troubled as she was and, perhaps, in need of succor, might feel inclined to unburden herself to him. He had taken to calling at the house almost daily, and had arrived, quite out of the blue, earlier that very morning, before Sylvia set off for the village. It was most irregular. People did not make calls in the morning, and Cora usually refused any callers at all before 3 p.m. But then, when Cora informed her that she wished to speak to the rector alone, in private, Sylvia suspected that they had had a prearranged appointment, that Cora had in fact been expecting him. Sylvia loitered in the hallway, tidying papers and adjusting an arrangement of flowers, but not a sound had permeated the closed door.

  Now she heard Cecily say, “I spent quite a while with her. She told me about her boys . . . Jack’s father, George, or Georgie as I think she calls him. And also about her childhood, where she grew up.”

  “Her childhood, where she grew up?” Sylvia repeated.

  “Don’t worry,” Cecily said, turning to her, “I promised I’d not breathe a word to anyone, and I shan’t.”

  “I see.”

  They walked on in silence and when they reached the privet hedge bordering Cecily’s garden, Sylvia said, “I must tell you something, Cecily.”

  She then explained how worried she was about Cora, about her friend’s recent outburst, the sitting alone in the temple. “I know that Jack, too, is concerned . . . very concerned,” she added, grimly. “Recently, she seems . . . she seems to be more confused than ever, almost delusional.”

  “It’s the heat,” Cecily said, with a shrug of her shoulders, and quite dismissive to Sylvia’s mind.

  “No, it is not the heat. She’s long used to that. No, there’s something else. I know it. And my worry is . . .” She turned her head away and sighed. “She’s become so muddled about everything, her past, the details of her birth, her childhood. I’m not sure what, exactly, she told you, Cecily . . .”

  Cecily stared back at her but said not a word.

  “But the chances are it was fantasy. Fantasy,” she repeated.

  “I see, and yet she didn’t appear muddled to me, not about that, anyway. She remembered it all in great detail. But don’t worry. I shan’t break my promise. You have my word on that.”

  At that moment Madeline appeared at the garden gate. Sylvia said hello, Cecily said goodbye, and Madeline said how much they were looking forward to dinner later.

  Sylvia moved away, newly troubled.

  It was not that she did not trust Cecily, not exactly. It was perfectly clear Cecily Chadwick could keep a secret. But her manner had been strange. She had been abrupt and decidedly reticent when Sylvia first caught up with her, almost as though she had been trying to get away from her. Is that why she had rushed from the hall? Had she in fact seen Sylvia before Sylvia had seen her? And why had Cora made no mention of Cecily’s visit?

  As she continued up the track, a sensation of estrangement enveloped her, and she paused at the top of the hill and caught her breath in a loud gasp. She was being sidelined, excluded, left out and cut out of Cora’s story. And that Cora had spoken to Cecily—Cecily Chadwick, a nobody, a young slip of a thing she barely knew—about her life, her childhood, was incomprehensible. But the facts of the matter were simple enough: Cora had elected to confide in another the one thing she herself had been waiting a lifetime to hear, to have confirmed. “And after everything I’ve done for her, everything she’s promised me,” she whispered, walking on, her heart pounding. “Do my loyalty and love count for nothing?”

  She stopped. Questions sprang up in profusion, like the nettles on the side of the path, stinging her mind. What had Cora told Cecily? Why had she told Cecily? Was it possible that Cecily Chadwick knew more about Cora than she? What on earth was Cora playing at? After all, Cora had invited her down here for that very reason, to tell her! To once and for all explain the truth of events before she arrived in Rome.

  She walked on. One thing was clear, an alliance had been formed, memories annexed, and Cora was now a protectorate of Cecily’s.

  “Cecily Chadwick!”

  She stopped again. She needed to compose herself, needed to think things through. But the sense of betrayal was agony, like a dagger plunged into my heart, she thought. Oh, but it was not she who was adrift, she reasoned. It was Cora who was adrift, drifting away from reason and sanity, away from a lifelong and tested friendship. Had I known, she thought, I should never have come . . . never have come.

  She moved off the track, through the long grass toward the rotting timber of an old gate, placed her arms along its length and allowed her head to fall forward. The world was spinning and she with it. “It’s not jealousy . . . not jealousy,” she whispered, eyeing a spider weaving a silvery web around a wasp twice its size. Then she raised her head, wiped her mildew-covered hands on the skirt of her gown, and as she crouched down to reach through the gate for her hat, she heard a voice. “Miss Dorland, is everything quite all right there?”

  It was Mrs. Moody, walking her goat.

  “Yes, fine. I was just admiring the foliage and lost my hat,” she replied, pulling the boater through a gap in the gate and rising to her feet.

  “Beautiful day for it,” Mrs. Moody said, staring at the skirt of Sylvia’s dark gown.

  “Indeed . . . yet another.”

  “Bernard and I always have a little stop here. You’re standing on his grass,” she said, and laughed.

  “And I must away. Cor— My friend will be waiting for me.”

  “Oh, and how is her lay-ay-dyship?” Mrs. Moody asked, jerked forward, toward the grass, by Bernard. “The rector mentioned that she’s not been herself of late. Troubled by the heat, he said. Well, I said, that doesn’t make sense, not being that she lived abroad for so many years, but he said it takes a while to climatize and I suppose it’s true enough. It happened to me when I went to Brighton, you know, and it was enough to—”

  “I really must get on,” Sylvia interrupted, and as she turned away, Mrs. Moody called after her.

  “Do give her my regards . . . and tell her I know what it’s like.”

  Sylvia closed her eyes: Mrs. Moody sends you her best, and wishes you to know that she, too, has suffered climatization.

  No, of course it wasn’t the heat that was troubling Cora; it was laughable that anyone would think so. It was the situation she found herself in: having to come back to England and confront her past.

  By the time Sylvia reached the laurel-lined driveway, she had made one decision. There was nothing else for it, she would have to speak to Jack.

  Cora was in the garden. She sat upon a bench by an herbaceous border clutching the red leatherbound volume of Byron’s poems: the one George had given her, still with the dust of a pressed violet marking the page. She watched butterflies: tortoiseshells, peacocks, chalk-blues, and a single red admiral. It was safer to love these ephemeral things,
she thought, than humans. Their lives were brief and fleeting but when they died there was no pain, no need for grief. They always came back, came back each year . . .

  If only he could come back . . . if only I could go back.

  She glanced about the garden. To think it had all been excavated and planted for her. And yet, how queer it was to be sitting in it, in England. That had never been her plan. Her plan had been to die in Rome, to be buried there, alongside George. But she had had to leave him, had had no choice, just as he had had no choice all those years before.

  So many parallels . . .

  “So many parallels,” she said out loud and sighed. She liked to think of the path of their lives—crisscrossing and overlapping—as synchronistic, and the events within them mirroring. But the only parallel had been each of their liaisons with people old enough to be their parents, although Cora had trumped his sixteen years with her thirty, and then trumped him again in her choice of third husband. If it had been a contest, Cora had certainly won, and by much more than a mile.

  She thought his name, heard his voice: “I have to go. It’s a tremendous opportunity for me.”

  Yes, it had been a tremendous opportunity, history had proved it so. And yet . . . and yet . . . George’s opportunity had been the undoing of them, and the undoing of her. But fate had also conspired in the form of that wretched woman, Mrs. Hillier. Without her, who knows what might have happened.

  She glanced up to the heavens, wondering briefly, fleetingly, if dear George and Mrs. H were reconciled there. No, it was a . . . a business arrangement, a commercial partnership. There was nothing more to it. He told me so, told me so himself.

  And John Clifford had also told her, or had tried to, once, all those years ago. A pupil of Canova, Clifford had been considered Rome’s finest sculptor, and his studio the liveliest in the city, a Mecca for all visiting English artists. It was the place Cora had first been exposed to long philosophical discussions and passionate political debate, which had in turn educated and informed her thinking. The gentle and paternalistic Clifford had taught her how to draw and, in quieter months when the city’s many visitors returned home and only those who had no desire to be anywhere else remained within its walls, Cora had spent hours listening to his anecdotes and reminiscences of how Rome “used to be.”