The Edge of the Fall (28 page)

‘Oh, look!' cried Lucy. She pointed towards the window of a shop just outside the park. The window was full of tiny animals, little pets! They moved closer. Three puppies slept in a basket, a rabbit slumbered in a wooden hutch, two handsome Siamese cats sat in the midst of puffy cushions in the centre of the window – and to one side there was a kitten! A little tortoiseshell, sitting at the window, propped in a tiny cardboard box, right at the side, paw raised, looking out at them. Louisa walked closer, until her gloved hand was nearly on the glass. She looked at the kitten, crouched down.

‘Aren't you beautiful?' she breathed. She put her finger on the glass. ‘Hello, there.'

Lucy was chattering above her head. Louisa didn't hear. She gazed at the kitten, entranced. ‘What's your name?' she whispered.

‘Come along, girls!' called Mrs Merling. ‘What are you doing?'

Louisa straightened up. ‘Let's go inside!'

‘We can't!' Lucy backed away.

‘Oh, come now. It will only take a few minutes.'

Mrs Merling bustled up to the window. ‘What is this, girls, a pet shop? Come along. We will never reach the park.'

‘I'd like to go inside,' said Louisa. ‘Please.'

She watched Mrs Merling's eyes stop and change, her mouth open to refuse – and then a thought passed over her face. Louisa had guessed from some of the conversation she had overheard that Arthur was paying handsomely for her to stay with them, although she didn't know how – he had said he had no money. She supposed that Mrs Merling didn't want to displease her, so early on.

‘I won't take long,' she said.

‘Well, just for a little while,' said Mrs Merling, smiling weakly.

Louisa pushed the door open into the shop. A hundred tiny eyes turned to look at her, yearning. But she had eyes for only one – the tiny kitten in the window.

‘May I see that one, please?' she asked the small man behind the corner. He tried to direct her to the Siamese, told her the kitten had been put there by mistake during cleaning, it wasn't meant to be in the window at all. It was a poor, weak thing, he said, they'd only taken it as a job lot with some other cats that had just been sold to a lady in Belgravia. ‘I doubt it will last more than a few months or so, madam,' he said. ‘Not much to it.'

Everything he said made her more determined. She asked for the box and he passed it over, grudgingly. She took off her glove and poked in a finger. The kitten grasped at it, rubbed its face over her nail. ‘He likes me!' she said, delightedly. She looked at the shopkeeper. ‘Is it a girl or a boy?'

‘It is a female cat, I believe,' he sighed.

She picked it up, felt the scratch of minuscule claws as it settled into her palm. The tiny pink nose nudged her thumb. ‘I have to have her. How much does she cost?'

She heard Mrs Merling breathe sharply behind her. She turned, smiled brightly. ‘You are quite happy to have my cat with you, I am sure, Mrs Merling?'

‘Oh, of course,' she said, stiffly.

‘But—' Lucy began. Her mother seized her arm and she stopped.

Louisa held up the little kitten. ‘I don't know what to call you!' she said. Then she thought. ‘I shall call you Petra.' She clutched the little tortoiseshell to her bosom.

‘Can I offer you a box to carry her in?' the man asked, sourly. She supposed he'd hoped for a bigger sale. She passed over her purse to Mrs Merling to pay.

Louisa held Petra close. ‘I'll look after you,' she whispered. ‘My darling.' She clasped the cat to her. The man was talking to Mrs Merling about feeding it.

‘I'll take her home,' Louisa said. ‘I don't need to go to the park.'

*

Arthur came down that evening when Louisa was playing with the cat and a ball of Mrs Merling's wool. ‘Look!' Louisa said.

‘She'll take a lot of care.'

‘Don't you think she's sweet?' She pulled the wool away from the cat, watched her try to paw it back. ‘I called her Petra. Like Pet, you know.'

‘I'm not much of an animal person.'

Louisa turned away, patted the kitten's head, dropped the skein of wool towards her paws.

Arthur said something, but she was too absorbed in the cat.

‘Did you hear me?'

She looked up. ‘What?'

‘I said, did you want to accompany me to a ball tomorrow night? There's one you might like.'

She jumped up, the wool falling from her hands. ‘Oh, Arthur! Of course!'

‘Well, tomorrow, then. Mrs Merling will take you to find a gown.'

After that, it had been a whirl of parties, cocktail evenings, then even more balls. Poor Petra lay on her bed, waiting for her. When Louisa arrived home she mewed gladly, sprang into her mistress's arms. In the mornings, when she finally woke up, Petra was on her bed, already awake. Sometimes she even woke her by licking her face. ‘You want food?' Louisa giggled. ‘Is that why you're awake?' She hugged the cat, padded out to find her some breakfast.

She'd noticed Edward at the beginning of 1920. It had taken her a long time to recognise all the faces, a sea of them, rather like the first week at school. She'd also been – although she'd never admit it – disappointed. When she'd read the newspapers in Stoneythorpe and at home, she'd got the impression that every ball was impossibly glamorous, full of the most fabulous dresses and handsome people. So it was rather a surprise to see plain-looking people, untidy hair, dirty fingernails. Most of all, she was surprised by the sadness, how some smiles slid away when people turned, their eyes full of despair.

She and Arthur had been at a New Year party at the Savoy hotel. It was beautifully decorated, tables of food, glasses of champagne. She raised her glass, laughed, trying to seem gay so that no one would know how she had a dark hole inside her heart. Christmas and New Year made her miss her mother the most. Arthur and the Merlings had been kind, they had all celebrated together. And yet they weren't family, they weren't her father, mother or Matthew. Arthur told her that his family said they missed her, but maybe they just missed the money that came with her. They needed it to hold together that rackety old house that should have been sold long ago. She disagreed with him at first, but the idea needled at her.

She'd sent Matthew letters every month, with her address, but he hadn't replied, not even a card for Christmas. She dreaded the moment of New Year most, when everyone would cheer and hold up their glasses.
Stay here
, she wanted to say to them all.
That's all you should wish for. That no one you love should die
. She knew, of course, that most of them had lost more than she, husbands, lovers, sons. But she was weighed down by the fear of cheering in the year, the thought that they were all alive when others were dead.

She sipped at her drink, looked around the party. Everyone they knew was there. Lady Ellen, tall, impossibly slender, dark hair like a fine cap over her tiny, fairy-girl face. Her friend Gwendoline Charteris, curly hair, deep-red lips, face always vibrant and engaged. The bank of chaperones, middle-aged ladies sent to escort the younger ones. And then the men. Dozens of them, dark-haired, fair, swarthy, pale, so many she could hardly tell them apart. A woman would speak to her, tell her that they had talked the night before and Louisa would have no idea who she was. They all sounded the same as they shouted to make themselves heard.

Then she saw him. He was standing near a pillar on his own, gazing out towards the crowd. The look on his face was almost painful, she thought. It pulled her in from among all the idly laughing faces, chattering mouths. He looked as if he felt things,
as if this whole whirl of people meant nothing to him. He was above it all, greater. His face looked like it had a scar across the cheek. She wondered if he'd been a soldier. If he had, he probably saw everything here as empty, without soul, she thought, after all that suffering. He was tall, dark-haired, with a heavy nose, smallish eyes. She supposed you'd say he was handsome, although much less handsome than Arthur. But it was the pain on his face that reached out for her, took her by the hand.

She started to edge towards him, unable to stop herself. Even though he wasn't looking at her, she felt sure he could feel it too; they had to be next to each other.

Then someone caught her arm. ‘Louisa!' It was Arthur. ‘Where are you going? You need to come this way. You have to meet Lady Bernet,'

He steered her over to meet an old lady who couldn't really hear. Then when she had a chance to look over her shoulder, the man had gone. She spent the rest of the evening sulking, yearning every time she saw the door open, always disappointed when a pack of girls burst through or a dowager came shuffling in.

For the next six weeks, she attended every party she could, scoured the walls, even the outside verandas, and he was
never there
. It was too much, she thought. It was almost as if he had been some sort of magical apparition. She danced with Arthur, dined with him, laughed when he made a joke, all the while feeling just like those spinster chaperones she had laughed at only a few weeks previously. She lay awake in her room in the Merlings' house, Petra snoozing on the pillow next to her, and wondered if she'd actually done such a silly thing as invent a man she loved at first sight. Perhaps he was nothing but a conjuring of her lonely mind. But she felt sure he was real. That almost made it worse. She'd come so close to meeting him, even speaking to him, and she'd missed her chance.

She knew, really, that she shouldn't be thinking about men. She couldn't even marry until she was twenty-one, unless she had Rudolf's approval. She hadn't thought to ask who her inheritance would go to if Rudolf didn't agree. Probably to a second cousin
of her father's or something. But then, she thought, who needed money? It hadn't made the other Deerhursts happy, as far as she could see. Perhaps she and this man could live without it, in a little cottage somewhere. He could build up a farm, she could help him. She felt sure he wasn't the sort to care about money.

She couldn't talk to Arthur about him, the thought made her too shy. He said they were cousins, she could tell him anything. But the idea made her blush.

In the weeks that followed, she tried to drag her mind from the man she'd seen. She looked at other gentlemen at the balls – but they were just pointless gaggles who'd go wherever there was a party, like flotsam on the sea, washed up on a beach by the tide. Arthur was different, of course. Her mother had always talked of how dreadful Arthur was – money-grabbing, selfish, broke Verena's heart with his behaviour. After Louisa had arrived at Stoneythorpe, she'd talked back at her mother in her head. He's good and kind, she said. He's changed.

And then she saw the man again. It was at a salon evening of Amelia Gregson's, at her Marylebone townhouse, a spring party in her rooms. Louisa had only gone to please Arthur, who said Amelia's mother was someone she should know. And then, when Arthur was off talking to Alexander Desmond and those other chaps, she'd wandered off for some air. She stood on the balcony gazing out at the city below, her mind heavy. This was what she had wanted, she knew, parties and fun and laughter, and yet it felt so without heart. What else did she want? her mother's voice said. To nurse men from the trenches, covered in blood? Be a servant dragging buckets up the stairs?

There could be nothing better than this. But Louisa knew that only worked if you didn't look too closely; if you held her new life up against the light, like a sheet raised to check for stains, then all you could see were blotches and holes. She looked down at the city again, thinking of Peter Pan, flying while nobody saw.

‘Hello there.' A man's voice. ‘You're not cold out here?'

She looked up and it was him. She stared up. The words wouldn't come. She put her hand out, brought it back, gazed at him.

‘I'm Edward Munsden. Looks pretty chilly out here. You must have been deep in thought.'

She smiled, confused, so muddled by the heat inside her, she stared suddenly at the floor. She didn't want to look at him closely because what if he was not what she thought he was, what if there were dips and shadows that made him plain, a pinched mouth, yellowing eyes? Perhaps she had not imagined him, quite, but invented him, created him out of a fleeting glimpse.

‘Will you not look at me?' he asked. She brought her head up, met his eyes. There was a scar, cutting across his cheek, white as lightning. He held out his hand. She grasped it tight, felt like she was falling.

NINETEEN

London, April 1920

Louisa

In the days and weeks that followed, she thought of Edward Munsden. At night, she whispered to Petra about his face, his soft voice, the kind way he asked about her family, looked heartbroken when she told him of the death of her mother. ‘He's really the kindest man,' she whispered, stroking Petra's soft hair. ‘He'd love
you
, I know it.' On that first evening, they'd talked for at least half an hour before he said he had to go in. He'd sought her out since then – maybe six or seven times. Six half-hours was three hours together.