only just stopped dithering and, encouraged by my English publisher, made a definite decision.’
They smiled at one another, and then turned to look at London sliding by.
The wind battered the long stalks of opening daffodils so that they lay on the banks and borders with their heads bowed like a defeated army. Apart from the relentless rain spattering and running down the panes, the house was deathly silent.
The heart, the very core of the household was gone. Vanished in the moment it took for a horse to rear. Isabella waited and waited for her father to call her to him, for them to comfort each other, but the door to his study remained firmly shut.
She was overcome by shock and sudden shaking fits. Her teeth rattled and her limbs jerked. She could not get warm, and Lisette, Helena’s maid, her own eyes red with weeping, put her to bed and lit the bedroom fire.
The doctor came up to her room and gave her a powder, told Lisette what she already knew, that Isabella was in deep shock. Isabella could hear the doctor and Lisette whispering at the door and she cried out, ‘Where is Papa? I want to see Papa.’
The doctor came back to her bedside. ‘Isabella, sleep now. Your father is grieving too. You will see him later. Now close your eyes and sleep.’
Isabella fell into a nightmarish half-sleep. The same scene played over and over in her head. Mama somersaulting over her horse’s neck and lying as Isabella first saw her, motionless on the ground. Her head … her head … Isabella squeezed her eyes tight against the recurring image.
Lisette lit a small lamp and brought a bowl of warm water and gently washed Isabella’s face and hands, weeping as copiously as Isabella until the two embraced so that they did not have to look upon each other’s reddened faces and swollen eyes.
‘Papa blames me for Mama’s death, does he not, Lisette?’
Lisette, busy with Isabella’s pillows, replied, ‘Your father is grieving, Isabella. He is in shock, as the doctor told you. He cannot face anyone.’
She could not meet Isabella’s eyes and Isabella knew then it was true, her father did blame her, and yet he had not even come to her and asked her what had happened.
Isabella went over and over the sequence of events in the days that followed Helena’s death. They left the boatyard. She was in front, Mama behind her. If she had ridden with or behind Helena? If she had dismounted when she reached the bottom of the cliff path? If she had waited? If she had turned sooner on the beach and ridden back towards her mother?
Over and over, back and forth she went, reliving that morning of their ride. Eventually, fearing she would go mad, she left her room to go and find her father. She found him in the library with his agent. It was early in the day but he was already drinking.
He stared at his daughter blankly when she burst in. Before he could speak, Isabella said, clasping her shaking hands in front of her, ‘Do you blame me for Mama’s death, Papa? Is this why you will not see me or let me tell you what happened?’
Her father poured more whisky into his glass. ‘I do blame you, Isabella, for the cause of the accident lies with you. Your mother never rode to the cove on her own. I understand you rode ahead of her, despite being the better rider. The fact is, had you been less impatient and waited for your mother, her horse would not have bolted and she would be alive now.’
Isabella was stung, flushed with misery. ‘It was because my horse was exciting Mama’s that I rode on ahead. Mama asked me to. I am sorry, Papa, that you think I am to blame …’
She bit her lip. She did not want to cry in front of her father.
‘You do not think you are to blame, then, child?’
Mr Trovorrow, the agent, standing with his back to the fire, stirred uneasily at this. Isabella did not answer. Young as she was, she was aware that her father must blame someone.
Trovorrow cleared his throat. ‘Sir, there has been a tragic and shocking accident. No one is to blame, surely? Horses are unpredictable beasts.’
Isabella’s father opened his mouth as if he was going to be rude and then thought better of it. Isabella turned and left the room. There was no point in talking to her grieving and angry father when he had been drinking.
She walked through the hall and out of the front door. She walked down the steps to the drive and kept walking. She felt light and disembodied. There seemed no one to turn to. Had she caused her mother’s death? Was her father right?
She turned, dwarfed against the vast chestnuts that lined the drive, and looked back. She had always hated this view of the house, neither softened by scarlet creeper nor the shutters Helena told her all Italian houses had, which framed a house softly like eyelids as well as keeping it cool.
So many empty rooms, and now dust covers would soon hide her mother’s possessions. Her father had locked the door to Helena’s rooms and she could not even go there to smell her mother’s scent, touch the silver brushes, sink into the folds of her bed and breathe her in. Helena was lost to her forever and Isabella did not know how she could bear it or where she could turn for release from this unremitting pain.
She turned as she heard a trap coming up the drive and saw two horses pulling a cart. She moved aside to let it pass, but it stopped beside her and Ben Welland got down from the cart. He took his hat off.
‘Miss Isabella. The family are sad and sorry to hear about the accident to thy mother.’
He twisted his hat and met her eyes and held them steadily.
‘Thy mother was a good and beautiful woman.’
Isabella was overcome, for the carpenter was the first person to openly speak of Helena. She stood in the drive trying not to weep, nodding her head vigorously. The man went to the cart and lifted a piece of the tarpaulin.
‘I thought this would bring thee comfort, lass, for it was thy mother’s birthday present to thee.’
Under the tarpaulin lay the beautiful chest of drawers. Isabella touched the wood. ‘Yes,’ she whispered. ‘Oh yes. I thank you, Mr Welland.’
Lying in bed that night Isabella could see the dark shape of the chest and smell the faint scent of polish. She could remember her mother’s lovely face admiring it. For the first time since her mother’s death she felt comforted. She would have this one piece of furniture all her life and it would always remind her of Helena. This was her mother’s last birthday present to her, and Isabella thought, I will hand it on to my child and so it will go on, Helena’s chest giving pleasure to child after child down the years.
The following day they had a private service for the family and the household in the small chapel in the garden. They buried Helena with all the other Vyvyans in the family crypt. The small chapel was packed with estate workers and their wives, the women openly crying. Helena had seemed to these poor and hard-working people so different from the English aristocracy. She had been warm and young and approachable.
Daniel Vyvyan was of the old school. He was respected, but he had no idea of their daily lives; of their illnesses, tragedies or poverty; of their hopes and dreams. It would not occur to him that they had any, beyond being employed, having a roof over their heads and enough in their pockets on a Friday night for a pint.
It was Helena, and sometimes Isabella, who knew that a sick child had died, or a family were in debt, or a husband too long down the mines had consumption. It was Helena who had taken food or vegetables and persuaded her husband to let the gardeners cultivate a small field for their own use to sell on to other workers.
Daniel Vyvyan sat directly in front of the coffin, his face stiff and grey with loss.
Isabella sat in the same pew, but far from her father as if they were people from a separate