The Last Summer (11 page)

I smoked my first cigarette that night, there, with him. We sat on the wooden steps of the boathouse for almost an hour, talking about things we might do one day, places we’d like to see. ‘I shall go to the desert one day and ride across it on a camel,’ I said, and when he laughed I felt so stupid.

He must have sensed my embarrassment, because he said to me, ‘I’m sorry . . . we all have our dreams, and yours are no more amusing than mine.’

But he still made me feel like a child; he
and
my brothers. And then, as I looked down, wishing yet again that I’d thought before I’d spoken, he took my hand and said, ‘Clarissa, you must surely know by now . . . how very fond I am of you.’

I looked up at him. ‘Yes,’ I answered. ‘Yes, thank you, Tom.’

I wasn’t sure what to say. What does one say? It was a compliment and I’d been taught to be gracious.

‘You’ve made this summer so much more than I’d anticipated,’ he added.

‘But I so wish you didn’t have to go,’ I said, tearfully, unable to be like my mama, unable to hold back.

He turned to me. ‘Perhaps it’s for the best that I shan’t be able to see you, at least for a while. You’ll be coming out soon enough, and I’ve no doubt, no doubt at all, that it’ll be just as Venetia predicts . . . you’ll be inundated with admirers, Clarissa . . . and I’m not sure I’d like that.’ He smiled. ‘You see, I’m very much aware that I’ve had you to myself these past few weeks.’ He lifted his hand to my face, ran his finger down my cheek. ‘And I’ve known you in a way that no one else will ever again be able to. Because I’ve seen you before . . . before life’s touched you.’

I smiled, even though I wasn’t altogether sure what he meant.

‘And please, Clarissa, promise me one thing. Promise me that you won’t go and get married, not yet.’

I tried to laugh. ‘Tom, I’m only
just
seventeen, of course I’m not going to get married yet.’

‘Promise me . . .’

‘I promise.’

He’d never been overseas, never crossed the Channel, but if he was afraid of what lay ahead of him he never for one moment showed it. As we sat huddled together on the step, he played with my hands, threading them in and out of his own, turning them this way and that, holding them up to his
lips, smelling the scent I’d dabbed on to my wrists before I’d left my room, laying my palm over his mouth. I longed for him to take me in his arms and kiss me. My entire body ached for him. I knew a clock was ticking, knew the moment had to be snatched.

‘Tom . . .’

‘Clarissa . . .’

‘Why have you . . . why have you never kissed me?’

He looked down at my hand, held in his. ‘Because . . .’ and he sighed, closed his eyes for a moment. ‘Because kissing
you
, Clarissa, would be dangerous.’

‘Dangerous?’

He turned to me. ‘You don’t understand, do you?’

‘Yes, I think I do, actually. You mean that you don’t feel
that
way inclined. That you don’t like kissing women.’

And he laughed, laughed so loudly that I pulled my hand away from his.

‘Clarissa . . . Clarissa, what on earth goes on in that beautiful head of yours?’ he said. Then he put his arms around me and pulled me to him. ‘I’ve spent the last six weeks fighting with myself . . . six weeks trying to do the right thing, trying
not
to kiss you . . . and the reason kissing you,
you
, Clarissa, not anyone else, could be dangerous . . . is simply because I might not want to stop.’ He looked into my eyes. ‘Now do you understand?’

In the moonlight, and up close, his features had taken on the silver hue of a Greek god – chiselled from ancient stone. I looked from his eyes to his mouth, and then I placed my lips upon his. We kissed slowly, tenderly. He moved his face, pressed his nose against my mouth, ran his tongue across my lips, as though they were a flower whose scent he wished to taste and feel, and smell. He cupped my head in his hands, moved his lips back to mine, and I felt myself falling, sinking down into a place I’d only ever imagined. I wrapped my arms around him, pulling
him closer and, as he moved his mouth down on to my neck, I heard him moan, say my name. Then, suddenly, he stopped and pulled away from me. He sat forward, his head in his hands, and I could hear his breathing, loud and fast.

‘I’m not terribly good at kissing yet,’ I suggested, wondering if perhaps I’d been a disappointment to him.

He shook his head. ‘We can’t, we mustn’t . . .’ he said, his voice strained, almost hoarse. And he didn’t look up at me.

We sat there for a minute or two in complete silence, and I wondered if I should leave him, if he wanted me to go. But I couldn’t leave him, not yet. I reached out, placed my hand upon his shoulder. And then I said, ‘I love you, Tom.’

I hadn’t planned to say it; I’d simply thought it out loud. But after I’d said it I realised it was what I’d gone to tell him that night. You see, I wanted him to know, wanted him to have something to hold on to, to come back for. And though I longed for him to say it back to me, he didn’t. He said, ‘No, I don’t want you to say that, not yet. Love me when the war is over. Love me when I come back, Clarissa.’

I moved in front of him, crouching down, and when he raised his head and looked back at me his eyes were filled with tears. I took hold of his hand. ‘Can I not love you now
and
when the war is over? Because I’m not altogether sure that my heart is able to postpone what it feels.’

He frowned, attempting a smile at the same time, and as we rose to our feet he wrapped his arms around me and held me, so tightly I could barely breathe. He released his grip a little, looked down at me. ‘I shall hold you to your promise, Clarissa, because my heart has to know that you’re mine.’

‘I am yours. I’m yours.’

‘Then may I be so bold as to request another promise? Promise me that your lips belong to me too.’

‘My lips as well as my heart?’

‘As well as your heart, and your mind . . . oh, and your body too,’ he added, smiling.

I think we said goodbye at least twenty times before we finally released each other’s hands. He made me walk back to the house ahead of him, but followed close enough that I could hear him, behind me. When I reached the stable-yard gate, I turned back to look for him, but he’d gone. I wanted to run back, find him, but as I stood there I heard Mr Broughton’s voice, somewhere beyond Mrs Cuthbert’s cottage, saying, ‘All ready for tomorrow then, Tom?’ And I swiftly moved through the gate and back towards the house.

I’d intended on rising early the following morning. I wanted to wave Tom off with the others. But when I awoke it was already seven o’clock. I hurriedly dressed and raced downstairs to the kitchen, colliding with Mabel and a bucket of coal at the baize door.

‘Oh, Miss Clarissa, you’re up early this morning.’

‘Has Tom gone yet, Mabel?’ I asked, breathlessly.

‘You’ve missed him. He left for the station with Broughton about five minutes ago. He’s going for the seven thirty-eight . . .’

I ran through the kitchen, through the servants’ passage, out of the house, across the yard, and grabbed my bicycle. I can’t remember the journey to the station that morning, but I remember arriving there, seeing the dogcart and dropping my bicycle to the ground. The train was just pulling up to the platform and at first I couldn’t see him – didn’t know which way to turn. Then I saw him, and I ran down the platform shouting out his name. He looked startled at first, quite panic-stricken, and then he smiled, walked towards me, and I literally fell into his arms. He held my face in his hands and kissed me.

And I have no idea what Broughton thought of the spectacle in front of him at that moment, how shocked he was or otherwise.

‘I love you. I love you, Tom Cuthbert,’ I whispered in his ear, and I realised I was crying.

He stood back from me, holding my face in his hands. ‘Clarissa,’ he said, and then he turned, picked up his bag and climbed on board the train. He leant out of the open window of the carriage door, reached for my hand and then the guard shouted something, blew his whistle and the train began to pull out of the station. I watched him go, never taking my eyes away from his, until he disappeared into a cloud of steam and out of sight.

I didn’t hear Broughton at first; I’d quite forgotten he was there.

‘Miss . . . Miss Clarissa? I think we should get you back home, don’t you?’

Dazed, I followed Broughton out to the cart and climbed up at the front as he picked up my bicycle and placed it on the back. Then he climbed up, pulled on the reins, and we turned back towards Deyning. It was a beautiful morning, a morning which didn’t go with war. The sky was pale and bright, completely cloudless, the countryside still asleep. And as we passed through the quiet lanes, I thought of Tom, on his train, bound for France, and of all the other young men heading out to the trenches. None of it made any sense to me. Life made no sense.

We said nothing, Broughton and I, on that journey home, until we reached the gate, and then he said, ‘God bless them all. We have to keep faith . . . pray for their safe return. All of them.’

‘Yes, we do,’ I said. But even then I wasn’t sure.

Faith
. . . Somehow it seemed a flimsy, insubstantial thing set against a war, like walking out in winter in a fine silken shawl meant only for summer months. Was it enough? Would it be enough? I wondered. I would test God, I decided: I would keep
faith in Him – if He kept faith in me; kept Tom safe, and returned him to me, unharmed.

I cleared my throat. ‘Mr Broughton, I don’t wish to compromise you, but I’d prefer it if you kept my visit to the station this morning quiet.’

‘Of course, I understand,’ he replied.

I glanced at him. ‘Thank you.’

He turned to me and smiled. And I remember thinking how handsome he was, despite his age. He had the look of Romany about him, with his dark butterscotch skin and chocolate eyes; his hands – scorched by sun, stained by earth – so different to my father’s pale unblemished hands. He’d been with us for so long I couldn’t remember a time when he hadn’t been in my life. He was as much a part of Deyning as the old sycamore tree, as rooted and as timeless. And yet I knew so little about him.

I think Broughton kept his promise, but of course I’d forgotten about Mabel, and word of my hasty early-morning departure had been passed on to my mother’s loyal maid, Wilson. As soon as I entered the house Mama appeared in the hallway.

‘I wish to speak with you, Clarissa. Please go up to your room, I shall be along presently.’

Minutes later, she appeared in my room and asked me to sit down. She picked my nightdress up from the floor, folded it and placed it under my pillow. Then she sat down on the chair by the fire.

‘I understand that you cycled to the station this morning, Clarissa,’ she said, looking out through the window.

There was no point lying. ‘Yes, that’s right. I did.’

‘And this was all to say goodbye to Tom Cuthbert?’ she asked, looking directly at me.

‘Yes, Mama.’

‘You do realise – you’ve made rather a fool of yourself, and very possibly tarnished your reputation?’

‘I don’t think so. I wanted to see him off and I’d overslept. I don’t think cycling to the station and bidding a friend adieu is a scandal. He’s going off to war, Mama.’

‘Yes, I know that, and I wish him, your brothers, and all the other young men Godspeed and a safe return home. But . . . it doesn’t alter the fact that you were seen by the servants, dashing off and in quite a state, as I understand. It’s not right, Clarissa, surely you can see that.’

I made no comment. I no longer cared what the servants thought: what did it matter? But I needed to hear all she had to say. And I knew there was more to come, I could tell by the tone of her voice. I watched her as she lifted her hand to a stray curl, twisting and tucking it back in place; each movement slow and measured.

‘You need to tell me what has taken place between you and Tom Cuthbert. You need to tell me the truth, Clarissa.’

I hated the way she said his name: over-enunciating the vowels in that manner.

‘I don’t know what you mean. Nothing has taken place. We’re simply friends, Mama, that’s all. And I like him . . . enjoy his company. He’s been one of us this summer.’

She smiled, closed her eyes for a moment. ‘Clarissa . . . Clarissa, you’re not a child, you’re a young lady now. You know he’s not one of us, nor can he ever be. I was happy for him to enjoy some tennis and croquet with you and the boys, but that’s as far as it should have gone. I had no idea that you and he had . . . had forged a
friendship
,’ and she looked at me, narrowing her eyes, and added, ‘or become close.’

‘We have not become close, Mama. I told you, we’re friends, nothing more.’

‘Well, I do hope you’re being truthful with me. You see, it would be very sad for you if it were otherwise, because nothing could ever come of it. Do you understand?’

‘Of course,’ I replied, looking away from her, my eyes stinging.

‘It would be a truly
pointless
and impossible liaison, and only lead to heartache – for you, and for him.’

‘I know this, Mama.’

‘Good. I’m pleased that we’ve had this little chat. It’s always good to clear the air.’