Louisa Hetherton-Andrews was pushing a doll’s pram down the winding garden path at her adopted aunt’s house, in Kenwyn Church Road, at Truro. Tripping over the long clothes she was dressed up in, tottering precariously in a pair of ladies’ high heels, she halted every few steps, not to recover her balance but to fuss with the covers in the carriage-built pram and keep her reluctant ‘baby’ imprisoned inside.
‘Stay in there, Kitty! I’m getting very cross. You have to go to sleep. I’ll not tell you again.’
Polly was watching her, proud and doting, through the open door of the conservatory while she worked on a piece of tapestry. ‘Be careful with the kitten, Louisa, darling. Perhaps you should let her out and take one of your dolls for a walk instead.’
‘She likes it.’ Louisa looked back over her shoulder, her defiant smile and shiny blonde curls hidden by the large picture hat she had donned.
‘You may keep her in there only a little longer,’ Polly wagged a finger.
‘Mrs Hetherton,’ the housemaid’s voice broke through the balmy quietness of the summer afternoon. ‘It’s Mr Harvey for you, ma’am.’
Polly put her tapestry aside. ‘Alec, how good to see you. I take it you’ve time for a cold drink? Ivy, bring some iced mint tea, and lemonade for Miss Louisa, please.’
‘Won’t be a tick.’ A lanky girl with a willing demeanour, the housemaid scuttled away.
‘Your new girl seems to have a nice manner,’ Alec remarked, coming to sit on another of the Regency cast-iron, cushioned seats, where he was closest to the fresh air. The sultry environment with its exotic plants rearing up everywhere, including a copious vine, was too stifling for him. He stretched out his long legs.
‘Ivy’s a treasure, Alec. Can’t tell you how pleased I am to have her. She’s mature for her fifteen years and is bright and hard-working. Her mother’s just got herself remarried to a man with a brood of small children and there wasn’t any room for poor Ivy, but I’ll see she’s all right. I’m paying her an extra shilling a week so she’ll not be tempted out of service.’ Polly found Alec wasn’t listening to her tale of domestic arrangements. His attention had veered to Louisa, as it always did on the numerous occasions he had called here in the past three months.
‘Hey, little lady down the garden,’ he called out. ‘Aren’t you coming to say hello to me?’
Louisa staggered on the hem of her trailing organza, righted herself – while Polly gasped in relief – and twirled round and waved to the man she knew as Uncle Alec. ‘Come on, Kitty.’ She hauled the kitten out of the pram and scraped her high heels back up the path. ‘See what I’ve got, Uncle Alec.’
‘He’s cute, Louisa.’ Alec circled a finger on top of the kitten’s smoky-grey head. ‘But isn’t Kitty a female’s name?’
‘It’s a she anyway and her name’s not Kitty, it’s Myrtle. Don’t you know every cat’s called Kitty, Uncle Alec?’ Louisa shook her head as if astonished by his ignorance and her hat fell off. It brought into view the ragged pink birthmark on her right cheek, which was the size of a half-crown. It didn’t do a lot to mar her looks but she was self-conscious about it owing to the stares of adults and the teasing of some children, and she preferred to play only with those she could trust not to mention it, like Jonny, Vera Rose, Will and Tom.
‘Well, that’s told me,’ Alec grinned, smoothing at Louisa’s ruffled tresses. ‘I’ve brought something for you, if your Aunt Polly will allow you to have it.’
‘I believe there’s a conspiracy going on between you two,’ Polly laughed. ‘You know very well, Alec, I can hardly refuse when you mention whatever it is in front of the little madam here.’
‘I’m not a madam, Aunt Polly,’ Louisa widened her cheeky blue eyes. ‘I’ve told you, today I’m a grand duchess.’
‘A beautiful grand duchess,’ Alec said. Since bonding with her shortly after her birth he was eager for Louisa to disregard her birthmark and grow up feeling positive and full of self-worth. He was delighted to see her little pink mouth sagging open in eagerness as he handed over a small gift-wrapped box.
Polly had expected fudge or chocolates as on other occasions. ‘What on earth is it? Alec, what have you done?’
Alec coloured and cleared his throat. ‘I’m sorry, Polly. I didn’t think.’
Louisa tore the ribbon away from the box and pulled off the lid. Inside, a tiny silver locket and chain lay nestled on a platform of silk.
‘That’s some pretty.’ Ivy had brought the tray of drinks.
‘Alec, you shouldn’t have.’ Polly’s tone was vexed, compromised.
‘Well, I just slipped into Parkin’s to get something for Emilia and there it was. Ah, Ivy, you’re a life-saver, I’m parched.’
A short time later, with Louisa allowed to wear the locket until teatime, and off playing with her dolls now Myrtle the kitten had escaped her overwhelming mothering, Alec tried a smile on Polly. ‘Don’t be angry with me, Polly.’
‘Alec, I’m pleased that your seeing Louisa more often than before is helping you to cope with dear Jenna’s loss, but you must promise me you’ll never do something like that again. You will tell Emilia that you’ve bought the locket for her? Or you’ll put me in an awful position.’
‘Of course I’ll tell Emilia,’ he sighed. ‘I’m sorry. I can’t seem to get to grips with things these days. I’m glad you don’t mind me coming so often. Strange, isn’t it? Emilia finds comfort in taking Will and Tom to play with Libby Bosweld, and I need to come here and see Louisa. I feel… oh, I don’t know, Polly, I just feel… misplaced. I know it’s a strange word, but I feel more than just being at a loss. I hope I help you in some way too, with you losing Julian shortly afterwards.’ His thoughts jolted back to the terrible, precious moments when Jenna had slipped away from him for ever. He blinked on wet eyes.
Polly pressed a hand over his. ‘Alec, you’re more than welcome here, and it does help me having your sympathetic friendship, especially now Ben’s gone away and I’m missing one of my closest companions.’
‘That’s typical of Ben’s selfishness.’
Polly took her hand away. ‘I don’t see it like that, Alec. He was here every minute of every day while Julian was fading away and he stayed with me for as long as Louisa and I needed him. He’s a good friend.’
Alec kept the smirk on his brooding face. ‘But he’s more than that to you, Polly, and he hasn’t even told you where he is. Or have you heard from him at last? He would only tell Tris before he headed off that he needed to get away.’
‘He did need to, desperately. Ben and I had many serious talks and I understood him completely. Things have changed between us. I always knew deep down that our closer relationship wouldn’t last for ever; after all, Ben will want his own family one day and I’d never leave the town for village life. It was hard for me to accept at first but I had to let him go. We’ll always remain friends and he is a doting uncle towards Louisa. You shouldn’t continue being so beastly towards him, Alec. It’s not fair. In fact, it’s cruel.’
‘I’ve offended you.’ He put his drink down. He hadn’t taken a sip of it and probably wouldn’t have done, nor touched the biscuits Ivy had brought. His lack of appetite meant he had lost a lot of weight since Jenna’s death. ‘I think I’d better go.’
‘Alec, you spend a lot of time thinking but it seems to me that it’s often one-sided. Don’t stay away, for Louisa’s sake.’
Polly had her head down and would not meet his gaze. Alec had made cutting remarks about Ben every time he had come here, now he had gone too far. Why all this sympathy for Ben? It wasn’t he who had lost a child. ‘I apologize to you, Polly. I did allow Ben to go to the funeral.’
Polly lifted her regal fair head and met his uncompromising grey gaze. ‘Only because Emilia insisted he should go. She and Ben want to bury the past. They want to move on. Don’t you think it’s time you did too?’
‘We’re all different, Polly. You’re very upset. Is there something you’re not telling me?’
‘No, Alec. Our talk has made me realize just how lonely I am, that’s all.’ She dropped her eyes once more.
Alec wasn’t sure if she was dismissing him or if she was about to cry. Perhaps he had reopened her grief over Julian. Either way, he had to go, and he knew it was his fault he would leave today even lonelier than when he had arrived. ‘I’m sorry,’ he whispered. ‘I’ll come next week, if that’s all right. Say goodbye to Louisa for me.’
He longed to receive an understanding smile, a kind word. Polly only nodded, as if weighed down by sorrow.
He could have followed the tiled path round to the front of the house but went back through the house to the hall, where he had left the particulars of a monumental stonemason; Jenna’s headstone was ready to be put in place. Looking at the folder on the side table he didn’t feel he could bear to pick it up. He leaned his back against the wall and stared ahead, into the drawing room, and saw photographs of Louisa at various ages, some of which he had taken himself. Jenna would have been nearly four months now. He went into the room and searched for a photograph of Louisa at about that age.
Is this how she would have looked if she was still alive? Smaller and not so chubby, of course, but… The image in his hands swam as burning hot tears came. He put the photograph back and wiped his eyes. Polly was there. ‘I can’t stop the pain, Polly. How do I make it go away?’
‘You don’t have to try, Alec. The way I coped with my husband’s death in the war and now with Julian’s is to make it mean something.’
‘How do I do that?’
‘By reaching out from here and not hiding away up here, where you see things all wrong.’ She touched her heart and then her head to illustrate her point.
‘I don’t know if I can change, Polly. Will you help me?’
‘Emilia will do that if you let her.’
‘Yes. Of course. I’m sorry, I’ve behaved badly towards you today, but we’re still friends, aren’t we?’
Polly glanced at other photographs dotted about the room in their classy Art Nouveau frames. There was one of Julian and Ben, arms round waists, laughing together. She no longer had Julian at all and Ben was somewhere far away. She gave in to the tears that had been building up in her since becoming cross with Alec. ‘Of course…’
At the same moment their hands reached out to offer comfort but they wrapped their arms round each other instead.