‘Oh, I see,’ said Audrey in bewilderment. Cicely laughed, a warm, gentle laugh and Audrey thought once again how little like Cecil she was.
‘How’s my brother?’ she asked as if she were able to read her thoughts. Audrey longed to ask after Louis, but she was afraid her curiosity might give her away. She reassured herself that the moment would come. Talking about her husband only reminded her of the bitterness she felt towards him and she had to muster all her strength to feign enthusiasm.
They drove down narrow winding lanes overgrown with ferns and dying summer foliage. The gentle autumn sun brushed the tops of the rolling hills and seemed to set the woods on fire. Although it was a clear day there was a distinct chill in the air, a reminder that winter wasn’t far away and Audrey suddenly felt a heavy wave of sadness. In the pause that followed Audrey heard Louis’ voice echo once more across the years, ‘Why do I feel melancholic? . . . Why? . . . Because we can’t hold onto them forever. They’re transient, like a rainbow or a sunset.’ And she suddenly wanted to cry. Whether it was due to the strain of knowing she was only days away from losing her daughters, or because in the face of such beauty she was reminded of her own mortality and the mess she had made of her love, she didn’t know. But at that moment she knew what Louis had meant and what he had feared. Transient, like a rainbow or a sunset. She had given him her love and then taken it away. He had been right not to have trusted her. Her love had proved fickle. She had let him down.
Chapter 15
‘Home sweet home,’ said Cicely as the car drove through a weather-beaten white fence into a cluster of gnarled farm buildings that all looked as if they had gone to seed. The twins sat up in the back seat and squealed in excitement as a pack of dogs ran towards them barking and wagging their tails, jumping up at the doors. Audrey suddenly thought of Cecil and how he would hate the thought of dogs scratching the paintwork of his car. The canine welcome party followed them through another gate into the gravelled driveway of the house.
‘It’s beautiful,’ Audrey gasped, running her eyes over the windswept front of the manor where the green leaves of a wisteria clung to the worn red brick façade and coyly masked the windows like a feather boa on the body of an elegant old dame.
‘It belonged to my late husband’s family. Now I care for it as best I can with what little I have. Don’t look too closely or you’ll see all the cracks and the stains. It’s survived four hundred years so I think it’ll take more than my negligence to destroy it now.’
‘It’s just lovely.’ Audrey sighed and felt her melancholia subside. ‘It’s such a happy house, I can feel it already. You must love it so much.’
Cicely smiled at her sister-in-law. ‘I’m so pleased you think so. My parents have been trying to convince me to sell it for years. They don’t understand like you do.’
‘Oh, I can tell already. The girls will be very happy here and so shall I.’
Alicia and Leonora tumbled out of the car and fell to their knees, patting the dogs and giggling loudly as their wet noses and warm tongues tickled their skin. There were two Alsatians, a springer spaniel, a black and white terrier, two brown dogs of no known breed and a fat little sausage dog. Barley the golden retriever was at the vet’s. Cicely had eight dogs in total, all boys and they were her children. She crouched down as they left the twins rolling around on the gravel and surrounded her with their damp fur and heavy breath. She didn’t care that they left testimony of their affection in muddy paw marks all over her pale trousers and shirt. Audrey imagined that she had put on clean clothes especially for their arrival in the same way that she had had the car cleaned, but now they had met, the immaculate veneer would be taken down and normality resumed. She liked Cicely’s normality a lot.
‘Come on inside,’ Cicely said, standing up and leading them into the porch. ‘Leave the bags, I’ll get Marcel to bring them in later.’
‘Marcel?’ Audrey asked.
‘He’s a young painter from France who’s using a room at the top of the house as a studio. He’s wonderfully gifted.’
‘What a good idea to rent out a room like that, you’re full of initiative.’
‘Yes,’ Cicely replied and her laughter was light with a hint of mischief. She led them into the hall. The wooden floor-boards were covered with threadbare Turkish rugs and a vast display of flowers sat in a brass pot on an old oak table. ‘My one weakness,’ she said, once again reading Audrey’s thoughts. ‘Flowers. I can barely afford to pay the gypsies to cut the grass but I’ll always find money for flowers and plants. They’re beautiful, aren’t they?’