Page 28 of How To Woo A Wallflower

Chapter Thirteen

Jasper couldn’t imagine the web of lies Hattie had spun her family to be stood here with him at the very edge of dusk in Richmond Park, but after the ordeal closing up Cora’s house alone yesterday, he was glad she was. He also had no idea where she had got the delicate Chinese lantern from, but it certainly held Izzy transfixed as the three of them stared up at the emerging stars from their blanket.

‘Isn’t heaven beautiful?’ For the last half an hour Hattie had conjured a world beyond theirs which Izzy seemed to understand. A world where every single star in the sky was a soul living in a faraway paradise.

‘Which one is Mama?’

Hattie bent her head level to the little girl’s and narrowed her eyes, squinting at them all as if considering. ‘It’s hard to tell right now but we will know soon enough. Have you got the gifts?’

Izzy nodded, her gaze never leaving the sky as she rummaged in her coat pocket for the pretty silk handkerchief which had once belonged to Cora. A tiny square infused with love because Hattie had solemnly made her kiss it and hug it before it was tied around a small, folded picture which the child had drawn this afternoon expressly for her mother.

‘Then let us attach it to the lantern.’ She sat back on her hands to allow him and Izzy to tie the precious but light cargo to the lantern. ‘Now I think we are ready to send it to your mama.’

‘Do you think she will like my picture?’

Jasper hugged his new daughter. ‘She will love it and treasure it until you and she can be together again.’ Just as he would this precious gift.

‘And I will definitely be going to heaven too?’

‘Definitely, Izzy. So will I, and one day the three of us will be together again having tea parties in the clouds.’ He hoped that was true too. Hattie’s version of heaven was one he wanted to exist.

Izzy gently held the lantern out to him to light, but then pulled it back to scan the sky with the uncertainty of an anxious four-year-old. ‘How can I be sure she will get it?’

‘The lantern will know the way, won’t it, Jasper?’ Hattie seemed to know exactly the right answer to every question.

‘It will.’ For some reason he was finding this informal, unorthodox ceremony more moving than any funeral. Maybe because there was no expectation that he mask his emotions, as here, cloaked in darkness, he knew Hattie would not judge him for them. ‘And don’t forget your mama is watching, so she’ll be looking out for it too.’ His voice caught and she stroked his back and took control for him.

Hattie smoothed her hand over Izzy’s hair. ‘Are you ready to say farewell?’

‘Why farewell and not goodbye, Hattie?’

Where such a question would have flummoxed Jasper, Hattie answered the child without a moment’s hesitation. ‘Because farewell is a temporary state of affairs, and not for ever, whereas goodbye is final and you will never see that person again. Now hold that lantern tight and do not let go until I tell you.’ That reassuring hand smoothed his back again.

With tears in his eyes, Jasper struck a match and lit the lantern, and they all held their breath while it glowed and filled with heat.

‘It is time,’ whispered Hattie and Izzy let go, and the lantern floated gently upwards. ‘Farewell, Cora.’

‘Farewell, Cora.’ Jasper’s tears fell and he let them as he grabbed Izzy’s hand.

‘Farewell, Mama, I shall see you soon.’

‘She will be waiting.’ Hattie reached for his hand as the three of them watched the light soar ever higher. ‘But in the meantime, she will be always watching you from afar, so whenever you miss her, all you have to do is look up at the stars and you can be sure she is smiling back.’

For several minutes, the lantern rose and bounced on the cool evening breeze, the flame within getting dimmer and dimmer as the candle burned down, until it flickered and died.

‘Has Mama got my gift now?’

‘Yes, she has, poppet.’

He cuddled Izzy close while still holding Hattie’s hand, his heart filled with sorrow but oddly bursting with love and so much gratitude for the extraordinary woman sat beside him it humbled him. All this had been her idea and it was as perfect a send-off as it was poignant.

Then, the oddest thing happened as they watched the night sky in companiable silence together. A shooting star danced across the heavens in an arc, so fast if they had blinked they would have missed it. Yet none of them did.

As Izzy oohed and ah-ed with wonder and Hattie proclaimed it was Cora waving thank you from afar, Jasper sighed with relief. Oddly secure in the knowledge that whatever strange but scientifically explainable phenomenon of the cosmos had just occurred, it had also somehow possessed the mystical power to take some of the guilt he had carried for so long with it. And while doing that, and quite unexpectedly, it had miraculously also managed to wipe some of his cluttered slate of guilt clean.

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