The Last Camellia: A Novel

by Sarah Jio

  He stroked my cheek. “No, no, you don’t have to be ashamed. Please, honey. You were just a child.”

  I shook my head. “I have to tell the police. I have to tell them what happened.”

  Rex nodded. “I’ll support you in whatever you need to do. My family has an attorney who can help us through this.”

  I sobbed into his shoulder. “I just don’t want to hurt anymore.”

  “You don’t have to,” he said. “Not anymore.”

  He kissed me before pulling a letter from his pocket. “I found this upstairs on the dressing table. It’s addressed to you.”

  I tore the edge of the envelope, remembering Mrs. Dilloway muttering something about a letter before she left in the ambulance.

  Dear Addison,

  I am in poor health, and in case I don’t have much time left, it’s time you knew the truth about Lady Anna. Whatever may have happened to the other girls, rest their souls, Anna died in a far different manner. You see, there is a poisonous plant that grows near the orchard. Lady Anna always said it was too beautiful to destroy, but that very plant killed her in the end. Abbott knew of it, and he had collected a few sprigs in the orchard. He asked if he could help make the tea, and I should have known what he had in mind. He hated Mr. Blythe. He hated that he had the attention of his mother. So, he poisoned the tea. He meant it for Mr. Blythe and saved a different pot for his mother, but it didn’t go as he’d planned. The teapots got mixed up and his mother drank it instead. Her Ladyship loved her children more than life itself. She wouldn’t have wanted her son punished or for him to carry that sort of guilt. So after her death, when he asked me if I’d served the tea, knowing full well the reason for his inquiry, I told him that I hadn’t. I told him I’d poured both teapots out and made a fresh batch when I noticed a fly in one of the pots. And that was that. When an investigator tried to reopen the case and scrutinize the autopsy report, I had the documents sealed. For Abbott’s sake. A son shouldn’t have to live with that sort of guilt.

  Yours,

  Mrs. Dilloway

  “Rex,” I said, setting the letter aside. “How is she—Mrs. Dilloway?”

  He nodded. “I got a call from the hospital this morning. She suffered a severe stroke. Only time will tell.”

  The nurse reappeared at the door. “Excuse me, Ms. Sinclair. I hate to bother you, but there’s a paramedic here to see you. He was part of the crew who rescued you. Are you well enough for me to send him in? If not, I can tell him to come back later; it’s no trouble.”

  I nodded. “Yes, please, have him come in. I’d like to thank him.”

  A tall man with dark hair walked into the room timidly. “It’s good to see you awake,” he said, smiling. He paused to turn down the volume of a handheld radio attached to his belt. “For a while there, we weren’t sure if you’d make it.” He extended his hand. “I’m John Simmons.”

  “John,” I said, shaking his hand. “I don’t know how to thank you for saving my life.”

  “I only wish we could have found you sooner,” he said. “You’re a fighter. Four days out there.”

  “I’m American,” I said, smiling. “It’s in our blood.”

  He grinned, reaching into his pocket. “Ms. Sinclair, the reason I’m here . . . well, I found something near the crash site and I thought it might belong to you.” The necklace dangled from his fingers; he let it fall into my hand. The tarnished chain held a silver oval locket with a camellia etched into the center. Lady Anna’s necklace. I recognized it at once from the painting at the manor.

  I gasped. “I don’t understand; I . . .”

  “You must have lost it during the crash,” he said, standing up. “Well, I won’t keep you. It’s good to see you making a recovery. The men at the station will be so glad to hear it.”

  “But,” I muttered, staring at the necklace.

  He walked to the door but turned back to face us again. “Oh, I almost forgot to tell you—we made quite a discovery out there in the ravine. If you can believe it, the men found a rusted-out Rolls-Royce from the 1940s nearby, with someone’s remains inside.”

  I gasped again. “Someone?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “A man, likely, by the size of him. Don’t mean to startle you, miss,” he said. “I just thought you’d like to know that you picked a pretty good place to crash—led us to some poor soul who’s been out there for decades.” He smiled. “Anyway, we all wish you the best, Ms. Sinclair.” He nodded at Rex with a wink. “And maybe let that husband of yours do the driving for the remainder of your stay.”

  “I will,” I said, looking up at Rex as he squeezed my shoulder.

  “I can’t believe all of this,” I said after the paramedic had left. I pointed to the engraving on the front of the locket. “See? It’s a camellia.”

  “You seem to recognize it,” he said, kissing the top of my head. He took the necklace in his hand to have a closer look.

  “I do,” I replied, remembering the way it rested on Lady Anna’s neck in the painting. Those sad eyes. That expression of longing, of secrets.

  He held the locket to my ear. “Listen,” he said. “I think there’s something inside.” He fiddled with the clasp, then shrugged. “It’s jammed. We’ll have a jeweler look at it.”

  “Let me try,” I said, taking the necklace into my hands again, heart racing in anticipation. What had Lady Anna kept inside? I tugged at the hook, but it held on stubbornly, until suddenly it released and the locket popped open. Something small bounced out onto the floor. Rex knelt to pick it up, then held it out in his palm for me to examine.

  “How strange,” he said. “What do you think it is?”

  My eyes flooded with tears. “A seed,” I said. “Of course. A camellia seed.”

  Rex looked astonished. “Really?”

  I nodded, remembering the stump I’d found behind the carriage house that day with Nicholas. Of course; Anna had kept a seed in her locket, just in case something should happen to her prized camellia. Did Flora find it and save it? Had she been inside that car? With who?

  “It’s a Middlebury Pink,” I said. “I know it.”

  “But how do you know if it will even grow, when it’s been in the locket for decades?” Rex asked.

  Over the years, I’d read several articles about seed germination, including one story about a wheat seed found entombed with an Egyptian mummy that had been successfully sprouted by gardeners centuries later. “Camellias are patient,” I said. “It’ll grow.”

  I held the locket up to the light, eyeing the inside carefully, and I detected an engraving. It read, “Darling Edward, my true north.”

  “You’re crying,” Rex said, pressing his cheek against mine.

  “Rex,” I said, “I feel like I’ve been given a chance to start all over again.”

  “Me too,” he said. “I almost lost you.”

  “I clutched the locket. “I just wish the gardens didn’t have to be destroyed.”

  He looked confused. “I’m not sure what you mean.”

  “The blueprints,” I said, remembering how I’d shuddered when I’d seen the plans for the property. “I saw them. I saw the golf course they have planned for the orchard. Rex, I wish you hadn’t signed off on all of that.”

  He kissed my neck. “I would never sign off on something like that,” he replied. “What you saw, Watson, must have been a stray page from a development project my parents are investing in north of Cambridge.”

  “No,” I said. “I’m sure I saw it right. There was an orchard of trees, and the manor was there.”

  Rex scratched his head. “Well, the ‘orchard’ you’re referring to is a field of aphid-infested crab apples, and the ‘manor’ is an old barn.” He smiled. “I take it you didn’t look at the plans very carefully.”

  I felt a flush in my cheeks. “But I thought—”

  �
�You thought I’d let my parents take a bulldozer to the gardens that my wife had fallen in love with?” He shook his head. “Besides, those very camellias inspired my new novel.”

  I grinned. “Really?”

  “Yes,” he said. “The flowers, the mystery, the manor—I couldn’t have come up with this story if you hadn’t found the clues.”

  We both looked up when we heard a knock. An elderly man stood in the doorway. His face was partially shrouded by a herringbone beret that rested low on his forehead, but when he looked up at me, I had a distinct sense that I’d seen him before—but where? He cleared his throat. “Pardon me. I was just looking for my sweetheart. I thought for sure they had her in room three thirty-four.” He held a coffee cup in his hand.

  “You must have gotten turned around,” Rex replied. “That’s on the other side of the hall, around the corner.”

  “I’m ever so sorry to interrupt,” he said, looking down at his hands. “Crikey, I forgot Flora’s creamer again. If I walk back down to the cafeteria, her coffee will be cold.” My eyes shot open when I heard the familiar name.

  “Here,” Rex said, grabbing two coffee creamers from the tray near my bed. “Take these.”

  “Thank you,” the man replied. “You must know American women and their coffee.”

  Rex smiled. “I’m married to one.”

  He tipped his cap at me and smiled. “Top of the morning to you both,” he said with a wink before walking out the door.

  I blinked back a tear. Could it be? Flora. The photograph of the man standing in front of the stairs at Livingston Manor. The fog was beginning to clear. “Top of the morning to you,” I said under my breath.

  Rex squeezed my hand. “Everything all right, love?”

  I nodded, smiling up at him as I squeezed the locket in my hand. “I was just thinking,” I said, pausing as my voice faltered a little, “that I know where I’d like to plant this seed.”

  “At the manor?”

  “No,” I said. “In New York, in Greenhouse Number Four at the Botanical Garden.”

  Rex squeezed my hand in approval.

  As I lay there, I closed my eyes, envisioning the camellia tree the seed would grow into, the beautiful blossoms it would sprout. Its journey, like mine, had been a harrowing one, fraught with uncertainty. With pain. But now it would put down roots and thrive. It would live with dignity, peace, and forgiveness.

  I would too.

  Epilogue

  The manor dazzled under the July sun. Two years had passed, and yet it felt like a lifetime since I’d stood there looking up at the stone facade. The summer before, Rex’s parents had urged us to make the trip to see the completed renovation, but I hadn’t been ready then. Not yet. But then I received a letter from Katherine Livingston. She and her younger sister, Jane, planned to see the memorial plaque James and Lydia had commissioned in memory of the women who had lost their lives in the 1930s and ’40s. It was time to return to the manor.

  I stepped out of the cab, cautiously looking up at the front of the old house. I remembered how I’d felt when I had first arrived, unsure, frightened by the ghosts in my past. And now—I looked at Rex, remembering the way he’d stood by my side when I testified at Sean’s trial, testimony that had put him behind bars, this time for the rest of his life—and I felt so sure.

  “Addison, Rex!” my mother-in-law, Lydia, cried from the front steps. The residence had been meant as their summer home, but she and James had spent the majority of the past two years there. And I knew why—the place had a charm, a mystique like no other. “You’re just in time. The Livingstons will be here any minute. Let’s go down to the orchard. You must be parched. I’ll have Mrs. Brighton bring down some cold drinks.”

  “Mrs. Brighton?”

  “The new housekeeper,” Lydia said. “She started six months ago. She’s doing a fine job. Mrs. Dilloway hand-selected her before she passed.”

  “Oh,” I said quietly. “I hadn’t heard.” I felt a lump in my throat as we walked down to the orchard. I clutched the little sack in my hand that I’d carried with me on the plane.

  “What do you think of the furniture?” Lydia asked, pointing to a set of chaise longues and various teak tables and steamer chairs. “I’m having some lighting put in next week, and James wants a grill and maybe an outdoor fireplace.”

  I smiled. “I think it’s wonderful.”

  Rex’s father caught up to us. “Hello, you two,” he said, holding a book in his right hand. He smiled proudly. “Look what I found in the Heathrow bookstore last weekend. I recognized the flower on the cover and smiled at Rex. “What will it take to get my copy autographed?”

  Rex took the book into his hands, pulled a pen from his pocket, and signed his name on the inside cover, the way he’d done at his recent book signing in New York. I never tired of gazing at the cover—“The Last Camellia, by Rex Sinclair”—or the dedication page inside: “To my wife, Addison, with love, always and forever.” I squeezed his hand.

  “Look,” Lydia said, pointing to the hillside, where three people were making their way toward us. “They’re here.”

  I recognized Nicholas immediately. His hair appeared whiter than before and his face a bit thinner. I wondered how the years had changed my own face. “Addison,” he said, clasping both of my hands in his warmly. “What a pleasure to see you again.” He turned to the women who stood beside him. “These are my sisters, Katherine and Jane.”

  “It’s so wonderful to meet you,” I said to the two women. “I feel as if I know you.”

  Jane smiled. “If it weren’t for you, we might never have come back,” she said.

  Katherine nodded, then took her brother’s hand in hers. “Just being here again,” she said, “I don’t have words to describe what I’m feeling right now.”

  I held up the bag in my hand. “Before we go see the plaque, I wondered if I might show you something first—something special that I’ve brought from New York.”

  Everyone nodded and eyed the bag with anticipation as I lifted out the little terra-cotta pot I’d cradled in my arms during the transatlantic flight. The soil, still damp from the water I’d given it on the plane, embraced a small but thriving sprout, about a foot tall, that I’d managed to propagate from the Middlebury Pink seed I’d found in the locket. “Your mother’s favorite camellia,” I said, holding the plant out for them to see.

  Katherine gasped. “How did you—?”

  “She saved a seed,” I said.

  Nicholas offered Katherine his handkerchief, and she dabbed her eye.

  “I was able to grow a new seedling at the New York Botanical Garden, and when it bloomed last winter, we succeeded in growing this start. It will be a tree in its own right before too long, and I know just the place to plant it.”

  We walked ahead to the old carriage house, where the stump of the tree’s ancestor remained. “There,” I said, placing my hand on my belly as I knelt down.

  “Everything OK, honey?” Rex whispered.

  I nodded with a smile. “I think I just felt the baby kick.”

  “He’s going to be an athlete, my grandson,” James said with a smile.

  “Or a gardener, like his mum,” Lydia added.

  “Whomever he decides to be in this life,” Rex said, tucking his arm around me, “he’ll be extraordinarily loved.”

  Lydia handed me a trowel and I dug a small hole, before freeing the sprout from its temporary clay home and setting it gently into the cool English earth. We watched the little camellia sway in the summer breeze. “Be sure to have your gardener keep an eye on it,” I said. “It’ll need to be staked when it gets a bit bigger, and don’t let them give it too much water. It’ll drown the poor thing.”

  Lydia nodded.

  “There,” I said, patting the ground softly before turning to face Nicholas, Katherine, and Jane. For a moment
, I saw them as they once were: three young children standing in the garden. “What do you think your mother would say if she were here?”

  Katherine took a step toward me. “I think she would say thank you,” she replied. “Thank you ever so much.”

  Jane put her hand on her sister’s shoulder. “I wish Abbott could be here to see this,” she said. “It would have made him so happy.”

  We walked to the memorial in silence, where we quietly marveled at the names of the women on the plaque before turning back toward the house. Birds chirped all around.

  Two figures, an elderly man and woman, stood on the hill near the house. My heart beat faster as Rex and I exchanged a knowing look.

  The couple walked closer, and Katherine turned to Jane. “Can it really be . . . ?”

  “I don’t believe my eyes,” Nicholas said.

  Rex and I stayed behind with his parents and watched the momentous reunion before us.

  I smiled, clutching the locket around my neck. The seed of peace, of reconciliation, of healing had been there all along, of course. Someone just needed to plant it.

  Acknowledgments

  I dedicated this book to my mother, Karen Mitchell, not only because she suffered through my colicky beginnings (apparently I cried for three solid months) and modeled love and grace to me, but also because looking back on my early years, she introduced me to everything beautiful, important, and special in my life, whether it was the flowers in the garden, the egg nog at Christmas, or the significance of faith. It also should be noted here that she made pie for me every year on my birthday because I didn’t like cake.

  This book wouldn’t be here without the amazing support of my literary agent, Elisabeth Weed, who launched my career in fiction with such savvy and has been there for me every step of the way (and with my publishing schedule, that is no easy feat!). I am tremendously honored to have Elisabeth as a partner in my career and especially grateful to be able to count her as a friend.