I’m pleased that we’ve had this little chat. It’s always good to clear the air.’
She rose to her feet, came towards me, where I sat on the edge of my bed. ‘You know, you’re infinitely precious to me, and to your father. You’re our only daughter, our baby.’ She stroked my hair. ‘We want nothing but the very best for you, the very best,’ she said, and then she bent down and kissed my head. ‘Now, please tidy yourself up and come down to breakfast.’
And then she disappeared through the door, leaving her words behind her.
Nothing could ever come of it . . . a truly pointless and impossible liaison . . . only lead to heartache – for you and for him . . .
My Dear, no, I do not believe I have been ‘hasty’ in my judgement (of that situation), but there is a war now, and tender hearts – even yrs – are NOT always innocent . . . which is precisely why I intervened. Yrs D
Chapter Nine
In a matter of days my world changed. And though the sun continued to shine, and the bumblebees and butterflies went about their business, oblivious to world events, the peaches and nectarines in the walled garden went unpicked and began to rot.
Haymakers disappeared from the fields, and the place was eerily quiet, with the air of somewhere after a party has perhaps suddenly and unexpectedly ended. People had gone but an echo of their presence lingered; their voices held in the atmosphere, passed on in the whisper of trees. Croquet mallets lay abandoned by the summerhouse, where Henry and Will had left them after our last game; their tennis racquets out on the veranda, along with Henry’s battered Panama hat and George’s cricket bat. And there, in a jar upon the table, the wild flowers Tom had picked for me in the meadow now drooped forlornly, wilting in the late summer sun. Sometimes I fancied I saw one of them – Tom, Henry, George or Will – out of the corner of my eye, walking across the lawn, towards me. Once I even thought I heard one of them calling out my name, and I calledback across the terrace towards the trees, ‘Hello! I’m here! Where are you?’
I wandered in a daze, unable to comprehend the suddenness of so much departure. I walked along silent pathways, through lines of gigantic petal-less delphiniums and foxgloves, standing shoulder high, erect and perfectly still. They’ll be back soon, I told myself; they’ll all be back soon. Perhaps they’d be back before the end of summer . . . perhaps everyone could come back and we could resume our summer. But I knew, even then, that this was unlikely to happen. Too many had gone for them all to be able to return before the season’s close. It would be autumn, autumn at the earliest, I concluded. And meanwhile, I had an important task to complete.
For my birthday Henry had given me a painter’s case: a small square mahogany box with a brass handle, containing tiny tubes of watercolour, a small bottle for water, a folding palette and three brushes. It was old, second-hand, and I liked that. I liked the thought that it had travelled, been carried about over fields, perhaps beyond England; and the case alone was beautiful, a treasure even without its usefulness. The day after my birthday, Tom had presented me with what at first appeared to be a small leather-bound notebook, a new journal I thought; but it was an artist’s notebook, containing proper watercolour paper. The first thing I paint in it shall be for you, I told him. And it was. I set myself up down at the boathouse one day and, after roughly sketching out the vista immediately ahead of me, more shapes than detail, I christened my new paints. When I showed Papa my effort later that day, in the library, he’d held it upside down and said, ‘Charming, my dear . . . what is it?’
I turned the book the correct way. ‘It’s the lake and the island . . . and that’s the sky,’ I said, pointing to the wash of pink and blue.
‘Hmm, yes . . . now I see. But isn’t it a
She rose to her feet, came towards me, where I sat on the edge of my bed. ‘You know, you’re infinitely precious to me, and to your father. You’re our only daughter, our baby.’ She stroked my hair. ‘We want nothing but the very best for you, the very best,’ she said, and then she bent down and kissed my head. ‘Now, please tidy yourself up and come down to breakfast.’
And then she disappeared through the door, leaving her words behind her.
Nothing could ever come of it . . . a truly pointless and impossible liaison . . . only lead to heartache – for you and for him . . .
My Dear, no, I do not believe I have been ‘hasty’ in my judgement (of that situation), but there is a war now, and tender hearts – even yrs – are NOT always innocent . . . which is precisely why I intervened. Yrs D
Chapter Nine
In a matter of days my world changed. And though the sun continued to shine, and the bumblebees and butterflies went about their business, oblivious to world events, the peaches and nectarines in the walled garden went unpicked and began to rot.
Haymakers disappeared from the fields, and the place was eerily quiet, with the air of somewhere after a party has perhaps suddenly and unexpectedly ended. People had gone but an echo of their presence lingered; their voices held in the atmosphere, passed on in the whisper of trees. Croquet mallets lay abandoned by the summerhouse, where Henry and Will had left them after our last game; their tennis racquets out on the veranda, along with Henry’s battered Panama hat and George’s cricket bat. And there, in a jar upon the table, the wild flowers Tom had picked for me in the meadow now drooped forlornly, wilting in the late summer sun. Sometimes I fancied I saw one of them – Tom, Henry, George or Will – out of the corner of my eye, walking across the lawn, towards me. Once I even thought I heard one of them calling out my name, and I calledback across the terrace towards the trees, ‘Hello! I’m here! Where are you?’
I wandered in a daze, unable to comprehend the suddenness of so much departure. I walked along silent pathways, through lines of gigantic petal-less delphiniums and foxgloves, standing shoulder high, erect and perfectly still. They’ll be back soon, I told myself; they’ll all be back soon. Perhaps they’d be back before the end of summer . . . perhaps everyone could come back and we could resume our summer. But I knew, even then, that this was unlikely to happen. Too many had gone for them all to be able to return before the season’s close. It would be autumn, autumn at the earliest, I concluded. And meanwhile, I had an important task to complete.
For my birthday Henry had given me a painter’s case: a small square mahogany box with a brass handle, containing tiny tubes of watercolour, a small bottle for water, a folding palette and three brushes. It was old, second-hand, and I liked that. I liked the thought that it had travelled, been carried about over fields, perhaps beyond England; and the case alone was beautiful, a treasure even without its usefulness. The day after my birthday, Tom had presented me with what at first appeared to be a small leather-bound notebook, a new journal I thought; but it was an artist’s notebook, containing proper watercolour paper. The first thing I paint in it shall be for you, I told him. And it was. I set myself up down at the boathouse one day and, after roughly sketching out the vista immediately ahead of me, more shapes than detail, I christened my new paints. When I showed Papa my effort later that day, in the library, he’d held it upside down and said, ‘Charming, my dear . . . what is it?’
I turned the book the correct way. ‘It’s the lake and the island . . . and that’s the sky,’ I said, pointing to the wash of pink and blue.
‘Hmm, yes . . . now I see. But isn’t it a
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