The Forget-Me-Not Sonata(94)

Marcel emerged only for meals, which he often took back upstairs to his studio, silently placing the plate of food on a tray then disappearing without a word. Cicely didn’t seem to mind. Their relationship was a twilight one, because she always came down to breakfast looking rejuvenated and shiny, like Barley after a long walk in the woods. Her eyes shone and her cheeks glowed and her smile became brazen like the scent of love that followed her around the house to remind Audrey of what she had had and lost.

There seemed to be only one photograph of Louis and that was the one that sat on the piano and tugged at Audrey’s heart whenever she was able to gaze into it. But one day when she was searching for something to read she discovered a few tattered photograph albums on an old maple table in the library. Aware that her curiosity might be intrusive she took the risk of asking Cicely’s permission. To her relief Cicely was only too delighted to sit with her beside the fire and show them to her personally. ‘I imagine you want to see Cecil as a little boy?’ she asked, settling comfortably on the sofa.

‘Yes,’ Audrey lied, barely able to restrain her enthusiasm.

Cicely opened the book and slowly turned the pages. There were photographs of their parents, Cecil as a child, Cicely as a little girl and their home, which was large and forbidding like Colehurst House. Audrey bit her nails with impatience. She willed Cicely to move faster through the book. She made the right comments, sighing at Cecil in his christening dress, admiring Cicely’s animated face grinning out from a large black pram and marvelling at their mother’s cool elegance. And then they arrived at a black and white photograph of Louis. He must have been about six months old. How little he had changed.

He had the white blond hair and soft curvy body of a small baby and yet the expression of wonder and innocence in his large enquiring eyes was combined with that dreamy, faraway look that so set him apart from everyone else. He was already in a world of his own. So vulnerable, so new, so fragile and so easily hurt. Audrey’s heart remembered the grown man that she loved and then looked beneath to the child who still remained and who needed her. ‘What was Louis like as a little boy?’ she asked quietly. Cicely wasn’t surprised by her questions because she was asking about all the photographs. But she was hesitant because she felt guilty.

‘He was sweet,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘He really was. As a baby he was adorable.’

‘He looks it,’ Audrey replied, smiling tenderly at the picture. ‘He really hasn’t changed that much, has he?’

‘Yes, that was the problem.’

‘Problem?’

‘He had trouble learning. He was late to crawl, walk, talk. He’s never really grown up.’

‘I see.’ Audrey felt the palms of her hands grow moist with nervousness. She sensed Cicely was about to tell her the real reason Louis was different.

‘But he really was very sweet as a baby. I remember because I’m that much older than him. He was like a doll and I played with him, until he frustrated me. He had a temper.’ She chuckled nostalgically, then curled a stray piece of hair behind her ear. ‘I think he frustrated himself. He wanted to be more advanced than he was, as if he knew inside that he could do better but his limbs wouldn’t follow what his head ordered them to do. He grew so angry.’

‘Why was he like that when you and Cecil are so . . . so . . .?’

‘Normal?’

Audrey jumped at the accusation with the ferocity of a protective mother. ‘Oh, I’d never say Louis was abnormal,’ she said hastily. ‘He’s extra normal. Extra ordinary. Gifted.’

‘Oh Audrey. You know so little about him,’ said Cicely suddenly, sighing heavily. ‘If it wasn’t for the fact that Isla loved him I wouldn’t tell you about him. But you’re family and I won’t be betraying him, I’m sure, by confiding in you.’

‘Go on.’ Audrey barely dared breathe.

‘Because, dear Audrey, Louis was born very prematurely. Dangerously prematurely. Mama nearly lost him and suffered terrible depression while he was in the hospital, while they were struggling to keep him alive. It was dreadful. The relief in the house when he was brought home was intoxicating. It was as if a black cloud had blown away leaving clear blue sky. That was until they realized that he had, in fact, been slightly damaged. But the effects were subtle. Not scars that we are all able to see and understand, but mental fragility that is harder to accept and even harder to treat.’

‘What do you mean?’ Audrey asked fearfully. Cicely continued as if attempting to justify their behaviour and while she spoke her voice rose in tone and texture until she sounded almost strangled with guilt.