The Forget-Me-Not Sonata(48)

‘What happens now?’ he said after a while. He knew instinctively that it was the wrong thing to say, but he couldn’t help himself. His impatience was overwhelming. Audrey pulled away and sank onto a chair. She remembered the scandal that Emma Letton had caused and the venomous Crocodiles rose in her mind like shadowy judges sentencing her to live as an outcast because she had hurt the people she loved the most. Then she saw the gentle face of her mother already scarred with grief and knew that she wasn’t strong or selfish enough to swim against such a formidable tide. Louis sat beside her. He looked into her gaunt face and his shoulders slumped with disappointment. He knew what she was going to say by her expression. ‘We don’t have to discuss this now,’ he added hastily, desperate to retract his question, but it was too late.

‘Oh, Louis. Don’t you see? I can’t risk hurting my parents. Isla’s death has destroyed them – it’s destroyed all of us. I can’t think of myself alone. I can’t think only of my own happiness. You do understand, don’t you?’ She looked at him with sad eyes. ‘I need time,’ she added huskily.

‘I’ll wait as long as you want.’ He took her hand between his but the glove was one more barrier that prevented him from recovering their closeness.

Audrey shook her head. ‘I don’t know how long it’s going to be. I’m their only daughter now. I can’t disappoint them.’

Unable to contain his exasperation Louis’ face suddenly crumpled with fury. ‘What about me?’ His voice echoed against the walls of the church. ‘Don’t I mean anything to you any more?’

She swiftly swivelled around and took both his hands in hers. ‘Of course you do. I love you.’

‘Then follow your heart.’

‘And break the hearts of all those I care about? I can’t. Not now.’

‘What about your dreams?’

‘I’m afraid to dream, Louis, because my dreams will cause so much pain.’

Louis sat back and stared bleakly out in front of him. It was cold. He shivered. Suddenly he felt as if it were Audrey who was dead and not Isla. His mouth twisted to a thin crescent of despair. He had lived most of his life without love and barely noticed, but now having basked in the radiance of Audrey’s love he didn’t know how he would survive without it. His future was slowly being swallowed by a swirling grey fog and all he could do was watch it go. There seemed to be no redemption.

‘So that’s it then?’ he asked in a hollow voice. The battle had been fought and he had lost.

‘Oh, Louis, please don’t sound so defeated,’ she implored him. ‘I can’t think clearly now. Just give me some time, that’s all.’

‘For what?’ He shrugged his shoulders. ‘You said so yourself, you can’t disappoint your family. I’m obviously a huge disappointment.’

‘Louis . . .’

‘No, don’t, I always have been. I disappointed my parents and Cecil. I seem to disappoint wherever I go. Well, I won’t hang around to disappoint yours.’

‘Louis, don’t talk like this. You’re overreacting.’

‘Overreacting? I love you, Audrey, that’s all I’m guilty of. Of loving you.’ His eyes burned with passion and pain and he longed to have the confidence to persevere. But to Louis everything was either black or white. She either loved him or she didn’t. There was no in between. And besides, he was now on the defensive. With the strongest will in the world he couldn’t have abated his impatience, that rose up to consume him.

‘And I love you too, Louis. I love you so much it hurts,’ she choked. ‘But my sister is dead. My beautiful, vibrant Isla is gone. Do you understand? She’s never coming back. How can I think of myself when she is dead?’

‘Because you have to think of the living now.’

‘Now? Today?’ She gasped in horror, searching his features in an attempt to understand him. His impatience and selfishness astounded her. ‘Perhaps tomorrow, or the day after. But today? How can I think of anyone else but Isla?’

‘I love you enough to fill the void her death has created.’

‘No one will ever fill that void. Not even you, Louis my love. Not even you.’

‘Let me try.’

‘Then give me time. Let us all come to terms with this terrible tragedy.’

‘But nothing is going to change. Your family will always find me eccentric. I can’t be what I’m not. I can’t be a Cecil; it’s not in my nature. They’ll never embrace me as their son-in-law and I’ll never settle for anything else, Audrey.’