Emma Letton joined Audrey on the sofa while her children ran around draining the dregs from empty wine glasses and eating all the empanadas. ‘You miss them terribly, don’t you?’ she said, placing her hand on Audrey’s arm to show her support.
‘I do,’ she replied. ‘However much I try to distract myself, I think of nothing but them. What am I to do? My life was my children and now I have nothing.’
‘I know how I would feel if Thomas sent ours abroad, I’d be devastated.’
‘It’s the silence. The terrible silence. I feel so alone.’
‘Why don’t you have another child?’
‘What?’
‘Yes. You’re still young. Try for a boy?’
‘So that Cecil can send him away too? I don’t think I can go through it all over again.’
‘Of course you can.’
‘I wouldn’t want to replace Alicia and Leonora. They’d feel I was marginalizing them.’
‘I think they’d be happy.’
‘Then you know Alicia a lot less than I thought you did!’ Audrey laughed. ‘She’d be furious and Leonora would be so hurt. I couldn’t do it to them.’ Besides, she wanted to add, Cecil and I aren’t even like two ships that pass in the night. We don’t even get close.
Suddenly the sound of music rose up above the chatter of voices. ‘Who’s playing?’ Emma asked, for they were sitting down and couldn’t see the piano.
‘Louis,’ Audrey replied.
Emma sighed in wonder. ‘He plays most beautifully,’ she gasped. The voices hushed reverentially as the music filled the room squeezing out the last remaining voice that continued oblivious.
‘What’s going on?’ Diana Lewis shouted. ‘Has someone died?’ Charlo rushed to her assistance and led her out into the hall. ‘Why is everyone staring at me, for goodness’ sake?’
For the first time Audrey heard Louis play something conventional, ‘The Warsaw Concerto’. He played it with such emotion that after a while everyone had found somewhere to sit and listen, letting the music take them to places they had never been and inspire in them feelings they had never felt. Everyone was touched by the extravagance of Addinsell and Louis’ heartfelt interpretation except Diana Lewis who smouldered in the hall, unable to hear anything but an irritating buzzing. ‘Why didn’t he play pieces like this at the Hurlingham Club?’ Charlo asked her husband in a loud whisper.
The old Colonel shrugged. ‘Mighty fine young man, no doubt about it,’ he hissed back rather too loudly and Charlo couldn’t help but agree. He wasn’t the same man who had left them in the wake of Isla’s death. He was less troubled. Audrey locked eyes with Cecil who was watching her watching Louis. But she looked away. It wouldn’t be long before she committed adultery and her guilt made looking at him almost too agonizing. He shifted his eyes to his brother and his shoulders sagged in resignation.
It was late when Audrey crept across the shadows with the same silent steps that she had taken on those nights when Louis had awaited her beneath the cherry tree in the orchard. But this time she had so much more to lose. Spurred on by the dark memory of that fateful conversation in the church she trod softly so as not to wake her husband, then knocked lightly on the door of Louis’ bedroom. She had to listen hard for the beating of her heart echoed in her ears against the stillness of the landing and she was unable to hear anything else. She remembered the day in the countryside when they had been alone to enjoy each other and her embarrassment at finding herself in such a position. But tonight it seemed right in spite of Cecil who slept unaware that his wife was making the first decisive step away from him. She hovered at the door knowing she was wicked, trying not to think of her husband or her children but remembering Isla’s encouraging grin. ‘Have the courage to follow your heart, Audrey’, she had said and her voice echoed across the years to remind Audrey that life was transient and precious and that love was the greatest gift of all. She would no longer live her life for others but for herself. Didn’t she deserve it after so much pain?
The door opened slowly without creaking and she slipped inside. ‘I don’t want to be alone any more. I need you,’ she said in a whisper.
‘I knew you’d come tonight.’ Louis wrapped his arms around her and kissed her forehead.
‘How did you know when I didn’t even know myself?’
‘Because of what you said in the church. I don’t want to be alone any more either.’
‘I meant it, Louis. I won’t lose you this time. I don’t know how we’re going to do it, but I won’t be without you. I just won’t.’