The Memory of Lost Senses (23 page)

When Sylvia found the small brown envelope on the table in the drawing room, the first thing that struck her was that it was in the wrong place. Unopened post belonged on the silver salver on the hallway table. Cora only moved letters from there when she was ready to open them, and then always at her desk. This letter, Sylvia could see, remained sealed, unopened. Picking it up, she noted the hand, small and somewhat malnourished, and the strange spelling. But people had forever been confounded by the name, and Cora was used to being addressed in a variety of fashions (once, Sylvia could recall Cora telling her, even “Her Royal Highness” had prefixed the misspelled name). But this was a brown envelope which, upon feeling it, contained nothing more than a flimsy, insubstantial sheet. A bill? Perhaps. Turning the envelope, Sylvia could see that it was not properly sealed, easy enough to open. But as she lifted it up to the lamp, leaning forward to examine it further, the door opened.

To Sylvia’s mind Cora overreacted. She was not snooping, not at all. She was simply concerned that this was yet another of those wretched letters. And she wished nothing more than to protect her friend. But oh, how Cora had gone on, saying that Sylvia had no right to be “prowling” about the place, rifling through her papers and letters. What was it, exactly, that she was looking for? she asked, sounding angrier than Sylvia had ever heard her. But she gave Sylvia no opportunity to reply, for she went on, saying, “Had I known you wished to play detective whilst here I should never have invited you.”

Sylvia tried a number of times to speak, to explain, but Cora would not stop. “You were about to open that envelope, Sylvia, I saw you. No, don’t even try to deny it. I was here, standing right here in the doorway, watching you. Do you wish me to read it to you? Do you wish me to read every one of my letters to you? Is that what you want? Must I show you every single part of me, my life? Am I to be allowed no privacy at all? And all of you . . . all of you crowding in on me, demanding answers . . . wanting to know everything, every tiny detail!”

Her breathing, always a problem, had become quite rapid and she raised a hand to her chest as the words tumbled forth. Her face was flushed, shining, and strands of her white hair stuck flat to her brow, wet and dark. When she finally sat down, breathless and still clearly agitated, she grimaced as though in pain, and Sylvia rushed to her side and laid her hand upon her forehead. “You have a temperature, dear. A fever,” she said, reaching for the bell on the wall. “We must get you to your bed.”

Cora remained silent as Sylvia led her upstairs to her room, cooing words of contrition. “You should know by now I’d never do anything to hurt you . . . only your best interests at heart . . . always have . . . always have.”

When Cora’s maid appeared, Sylvia moved aside and stepped out of the room into the lobby. She could hear Cora saying something about it all being too much for her, and the maid softly hushing and fussing. When the maid finally emerged through the doorway, Sylvia stepped back into the lamplit room to say good night.

“Don’t think I don’t know . . . I know everything,” Cora said, without looking at Sylvia. She was not lying flat and not quite upright, but propped by a multitude of white linen pillows, against which her hair, now plaited in two thick ropes, all but disappeared. In the great galleon of a bed she suddenly appeared very small, Sylvia thought, small and frightened. And it was the same fearful look Sylvia recalled having seen before, a very long time ago.

“You’ve been talking about me to Cecily . . . talking about
him
.”

“Him?” Sylvia repeated. She presumed Cora meant George. “I most certainly have not,” she replied. “But that girl is determined, oh yes, you mark my words.”

“You’re all determined . . . won’t be satisfied until I’ve lost my senses and been committed . . . like her, and like John Abel.”

Sylvia stood at the end of the bed. She ran her hands over the sheet. “Hush now, you must rest, dear. I shall tell Jack that—”

“You shall tell Jack nothing,” Cora said, fixing her eyes on Sylvia.

“All I meant was—”

“You shall tell Jack nothing,” she said again.

Sylvia hovered, watching Cora’s hands plucking at the bedcover.

“You were always there for me, weren’t you, Sylvia?”

“Yes, indeed I was, and I still am.”

“Yes, always there for me . . . always able to tell me about George’s new lover, the very latest rumor.”

“Aha, so that’s what this is all about. You’ve been remembering Evie Dip—”

“No! Don’t say it! I don’t want that name uttered in this room! I don’t want to hear that name now or ever again.”

Sylvia had been the one to tell Cora, the one who had written to her in Paris of the Dipple Affair. She wrote to Cora that she had heard from various “reliable” sources that George had become
quite obsessed
with his latest sitter. She had mentioned the girl’s age, telling Cora that it was
the talk of all London
.

“But I had no intention of . . .” Sylvia began and then stopped. There was no point. Cora was, Sylvia thought, delirious, quite delirious. So she simply bid her friend good night. But as she turned to close the bedroom door she heard Cora mutter something about
revenge
.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t quite catch that,” she said.

“It wasn’t revenge . . . my marriage, it was never about revenge . . .”

“Of course,” she replied. “Good night, dear.”

Minutes later, when Sylvia eventually located Jack, sitting on the candlelit veranda, doing nothing but staring out into the dusk, she stopped in her tracks and stood perfectly still for a moment, struck once again by the likeness. The profile could be him, she thought: George, before he grew his beard. And she could not help but wonder if it was in fact Jack’s presence that was tipping Cora. For how must it feel to have him there? The only one left, all she had left: a constant reminder.

She sat down beside him, explained to him that Cora had retired for the evening and that she was not at all well. She was concerned, she said, for her well-being and for her state of mind. But like all young people, it seemed to her, he was distracted, and spoke only in short sentences containing those ubiquitous words—
age
and
heat
.

“She has a fever, Jack. She was quite delirious. I wasn’t going to mention it to you, I don’t want to worry you, but . . . she accused me of spying, snooping on her.”

He turned to her. “Do you think we should send for the doctor first thing in the morning?”

“I’m not sure. She hates doctors, has never had any time for them. I told her that she should remain in her bed tomorrow. Her room is cool . . . I think she needs to rest.”

“You’re a very good friend to her, Sylvia,” he said.

She could have told him things then, could have told him how betrayed and hurt she felt, how very odd Cecily Chadwick had been with her the other day, her suspicions about that girl, and about Mr. Fox. And she could have told him about the letters, and about George Lawson, and Edward. But when he yawned, stretched out his legs, then turned to her and said, “You know, Cecily writes. She’s working on a novel,” Sylvia simply smiled.

He sat up in his chair. “She wants to write a book based on Cora’s life.”

She stared ahead. “Oh, really? I rather thought that was my role.”

“Ah, no, nothing like a memoir. A sort of mix of fact and fiction, I suppose, something
loosely
based on her life. I think she’s made quite a few notes, has begun working on it.”

“Well, well.”

“I thought you might take a look. I told her I’d ask you . . .”

Sylvia rose to her feet.

She was not a violent person, had never struck or been struck by anyone, but right at that moment, had Cecily Chadwick been there, she thought she might very well have slapped her. She said, “Oh, I shall have to see, Jack. I’m rather busy, as you know, with your grandmother’s memoirs, and finishing off my own novel.”

Jack nodded.

He was not to know, she thought. He was innocent in all of this. But as she moved toward the doorway back into the house, another thought came to her, and she stopped and turned to him. “As a special favor to you, I shall take a look at Cecily’s book, the one she’s writing about Cora’s life. It makes sense for me to see it. After all, I
was
there.”

“Thank you, Sylvia,” he said, smiling.

Upstairs, Cora had returned to Italy.

She dreamed of that time so long ago, when George announced, “I have to go. It’s a tremendous opportunity for me.” And she was young and she was desperate, and she was begging him to stay in Rome with her. He said, “I’ll be back, I promise. I’ll be back in the autumn.”

It was shortly after George’s departure that Cora married Jack Staunton, her aunt’s stepson. She gave birth to Freddie five months later. George did not return to Rome; already, by then, he was famous and much in demand. The Queen had bought his
Madonna
, Cora read in the English newspapers. And it was via those newspapers she caught up on the events in his life, often weeks after they had happened. From time to time she received firsthand reports: he had attended some party, been present at someone’s wedding, been in Paris, or Florence, or Munich, but not Rome, never Rome. She heard that he moved within the highest echelons of English society, was a regular dinner guest at Buckingham Palace, counted dukes and duchesses amongst his closest friends, was courted and feted, and hailed as “England’s greatest living painter.” Royal patronage, it seemed, had catapulted him into the stratosphere.

And she had heard the gossip, the rumors about the women in his life. But those whom he chose to escort and appear in public with, and those he allegedly entertained in private were quite different.

She pictured him, then, in glittering company, and wondered if he ever thought of her, ever wished her by his side. And sometimes, lost in a daydream, she allowed herself to indulge in fantasy once more. She imagined herself with him, standing under a bright chandelier. “Your Grace,” he would say, holding on to her hand, “I don’t believe you’ve met my wife . . .”

She had not been angry, could never be angry with him. He had not known. And he could not know, not then, not ever, that she had given birth to his son. Aunt Fanny had said so, and had dealt with the crisis swiftly. She had spoken to her husband, and the marriage had been arranged within weeks. Freddie came early, Fanny told everyone, though Cora knew there was gossip.

And the gossip continued about George, also.

His relationship with his patron, Mrs. Hillier, the woman who had introduced him to society in Rome and was his most devoted advocate and champion, had come under scrutiny. It was reported that the two were inseparable, that the married lady, some years George’s senior, was always at his side, and that her husband turned a blind eye. It was reported that the two traveled together frequently to Paris, and that Mrs. Hillier, a former opera singer, acted as hostess at the many dinners and musical soirees at George’s home in London. Some suggested that George Lawson was using the well-connected older lady, that his ambition knew no bounds, and that his success was in no small way due to Mrs. H’s introductions.

But Amy Hillier had long dazzled everyone in Rome, particularly Cora’s aunt. An invitation to one of her musical soirees had become a highly sought-after ticket of entry to the exclusive expatriate set. It had been at Mrs. Hillier’s sumptuous home on the Pincio Hill, with its long windows and sunset-colored walls, that Cora had first met George, though she had heard his name before that day, heard that George Lawson, the most promising English painter in a lifetime, had come to Rome.

She and George had spoken together only briefly that night, although they had exchanged many glances. Mrs. Hillier barely left his side. It was just as Cora’s aunt had predicted when she said, “Mrs. Hillier has a new raison d’être: his name is George Lawson.” That evening Cora had been introduced to any number of people: various English aristocrats wintering in Rome, politicians, Austrian and Italian counts and countesses, and a coterie of English and American artists and writers. And she was introduced to George’s father as well, who had been passing through Rome on his way to Greece. It was also the first time Cora had heard the famous diva, Mrs. Hillier, sing, though she had heard tell of the exquisiteness of her voice, and would later say that it was Mrs. Hillier’s
bel canto
that finally stirred her from an adolescent slumber.

Some years later, when Mrs. Hillier returned to Rome with her husband, Cora found herself once more on the Pincio Hill, when she and her aunt were invited to tea. She learned that George was working in Florence. Mrs. Hillier had visited him en route to Rome and spoke of him at some length, saying that she was worried about his health; that he worked much too hard and had had such problems with his eyes. Cora’s aunt nodded sympathetically throughout, then asked, “And will we see him here in Rome?” But Mrs. Hillier said not. He would be returning to London from Florence, she said, glancing at Cora.