The Forget-Me-Not Sonata(77)

‘Why doesn’t Florien take the girls and show them around the farm. There’s so much to see and this is their first time in England.’ Florien looked as if he had just been asked to recite his nine times table and blushed to the roots of his shiny black hair.

‘Can we ride these horses?’ Alicia asked and Florien’s cheeks drained of his embarrassment for at least they all spoke the same language. He wasn’t very good at French.

‘If you like,’ Panazel replied, ‘but it’ll have to be this evening for I’ve got work to do.’ Cicely liked the sound of that, there was so much that needed doing just to keep the place ticking over.

‘Florien, I’d like to see inside your caravan,’ Alicia demanded and Audrey flinched at her daughter’s commanding tone. But Florien gazed upon her with more admiration than ever and strode towards the steps indicating with a nod that she follow. Leonora was used to being passed over but she tagged along as she always did, out of habit as well as necessity.

Audrey and Cicely wandered back across the field towards the gardens, the dogs puffing at their heels. Audrey was longing to ask after Louis. She hadn’t stopped thinking about him since she had set foot in England. She felt his presence everywhere and was reminded of him each time she looked at his sister. Finally, her opportunity came when she was shown into the drawing room for a grand piano stood collecting dust in the corner beneath large black and white photographs in silver frames. Hungrily she passed her eyes over the pictures until Louis’ face smiled out at her. And his smile held within it all his hopes and dreams, longings and disappointments, which she recognized and understood. She wanted to run her fingers over it and remember him the way he was when they had danced over the cobbled streets of Palermo in the summer of their love. So taken was she that she barely heard a word Cicely was saying.

‘I gather you play the piano most beautifully,’ Cicely said, sitting down on the club fender with her two Alsatians flopping onto the carpet at her feet. Audrey wrenched her thoughts away from the photograph and sighed.

‘Not that well, I’m afraid,’ she replied vaguely, staring into his features as if he were trying to communicate with her through the still, silent medium of the picture.

‘Cecil is full of admiration. He can’t play a note, not like Louis,’ she said and her voice trailed off. Audrey went pale. She turned slowly and saw that Cicely’s eyes were fixed on her with a mixture of curiosity and sympathy. She didn’t know what to say. She had no idea how much Cicely knew. She waited with a suspended heart for Cicely to give her a clue as to where this conversation was leading. Her sister-in-law gazed at her steadily then tilted her head to one side. ‘I’m so terribly sorry about your sister. I know it was a good many years ago now, but I know what it’s like to lose someone, you never forget and you never really heal, you just push on because you have to.’ Cicely pulled a thin smile and blinked away the image of her late husband that had nudged its way to the front of her mind.

‘Thank you, Cicely,’ Audrey replied in a quiet voice. Then feeling exposed standing up she went and sat on one of the sofas, folding her arms in front of her defensively.

‘Cecil told me how special she was and Louis . . .’ Audrey raised her eyes and frowned. Cicely took care to choose the right words. ‘And Louis . . . suffered a broken heart.’

‘Louis just disappeared,’ said Audrey. Aware that her voice had thinned she coughed and added more steadily, ‘One moment he was there, the next he was gone.’ Then she focused her eyes on the carpet and bit the inside of her cheek.

‘He went to Mexico. God knows what he did for all those years. Cecil wrote to me and told me. It didn’t surprise me, Louis has always been a very sensitive man, and fragile. Well, I’m sure you know. Then he arrived here one day last spring. Out of the blue. Not a letter or a telegram to warn us that he was turning up.’ Her eyes narrowed as her sight misted and she spoke in a very soft voice. ‘He looked older. Much older, as if he had been robbed of his youth. You have to remember that Cecil and I are a good deal older than him. He was always the baby and in my memory he always will be. There’s still something very childlike about Louis.’ Audrey felt a wave of regret debilitate her suddenly and struggled to compose herself. But Cicely continued oblivious of the torment her words inflicted. ‘Louis has always been unpredictable but he’s never been secretive. If Cecil hadn’t told me about Isla I’d never have known what was torturing him. He didn’t confide in me, in fact, he never spoke about it, even after all these years. He seemed so cut up, still. I tried to prise it out of him. I thought it would be better to let it all out rather than bottle it up. But he just played this maddening melody over and over on the piano. It’s so out of tune, it made my ears throb. Only Chip, my sausage dog, could bear it. He’d sit at his feet watching the pedals move up and down transfixed.’