Read Online The Edge of the Fall by Kate Williams - Free Book Online Page B

and her heart was filled with anger. Her father would never have done that. Tom was wrong.
    He’d been shocked by her horror. You don’t think I’m good enough for your family, is that it? And then the war ended, and they’d been swept up in the excitement. He’d put his arm around her. They didn’t speak of it, but the figure of Rudolf hung between them. The night had been cold, glittering. And yet, in the months afterwards, she thought he went back to how he had been before. He hadn’t really forgiven her for being so angry when he said Rudolf was his father.
    After the war, he’d left the hospital for a convalescent home by the coast. He wrote to say he was going to London to work, gave no address. She’d written letters to his home, but got no reply.
    Finally, a few weeks before, she’d received a letter. Thompson brought it up to her. ‘I don’t know who it’s from, miss.’
    She tore it open. Tom’s handwriting.
    Meet me by the church at three tomorrow , he wrote. It looked scrawled, quick. Her heart thumped with anticipation, with the feelings she had spent years trying to control.
    The next day, she’d hurried out after prettifying herself. He was standing outside the church, looking up at the sky.
    â€˜Hello, Tom,’ she said. He turned around to her, not quitesmiling, she thought, but perhaps the sun was in his eyes. ‘Thanks for asking to meet me. I thought you weren’t getting my letters.’
    â€˜My mother sends them on.’
    â€˜It’s – nice to see you.’ The scars on his face were fading already. His eyes were less bloodshot too. She gazed at his arm. He could probably move that fully as well now, the injuries leaving his body. He looked taller, wider, as if he was making money and lived well. His hair had thickened and grown longer over his ears. The war hung heavy on her, she felt it dragged her around. Not him.
    â€˜And you.’
    â€˜Are you here for long?’
    He shook his head. ‘No, not really. Look, Celia, I’m sorry. But, you know, things are different. You mustn’t write to me as much as you do. We should be friends, of course. But you need to find other friends. Who are your friends?’
    She shook her head, blushing.
    â€˜You need to find some. Celia, you have to leave Stoneythorpe and find friends.’
    â€˜I thought we were friends!’
    â€˜We were. But we were children then. You can’t rely on me.’
    â€˜You’re still angry with me.’ She remembered that awful night, Tom saying he knew Rudolf was his father, Celia refusing to believe him.
    â€˜I’m not angry with you. I just think that you need to see that things have changed. I should go. They’re waiting for me.’
    â€˜Won’t you give me your address in London?’ She knew she was begging, asking a man for something he didn’t want to give. But she couldn’t stop herself. It was her only chance.
    He turned away. ‘I’ll send it to you. Goodbye, Celia.’
    She hadn’t heard from Tom since then and she’d resisted writing to him. But here she was now, sitting down with pen in hand for him, trying to forget all her childish dreams about the two of them falling in love and marrying.
    Father says I need an occupation. I know it’s true. But I don’t know what to do .
    She heard his response. Who are your friends?
    And then she wrote to Jonathan Corrigan in New York, even though she knew she shouldn’t, that he’d write back, wonder how she was, ask her to come and see him, that she’d be giving him some sort of small hope when she was only in love with Tom. She felt ashamed of herself, sealing it up to send.
    Next morning, she put the letters to Tom and Jonathan on the table to be sent, came down to breakfast and Louisa was there with Verena and Rudolf. Arthur had left early, they said, business. She gave Louisa a smile and her cousin