‘There’s nothing to worry about. I just got a bit of a fright, that’s all.’
‘Did you call Lukas this morning? He really wants to speak to you.’
‘It’ll have to wait,’ Evie said.
‘Well, don’t forget, will you?’
Evie sighed. ‘I won’t forget.’
‘So what did you want to see Esther for?’ Celeste asked. She had meant to be more subtle in her line of questioning but it hadn’t exactly worked out, because Evie’s hand was on the doorknob and she was about to flee.
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean, you asked for Esther last night and then spent an eternity talking to her.’
‘So?’
Celeste frowned. ‘I didn’t know you two were friends.’
‘Well, we are,’ Evie said, her face impassive.
‘Right,’ Celeste said nonplussed. ‘I didn’t know.’
‘There’s a lot you don’t know,’ Evie said.
‘What do you mean by that?’
‘I mean, you don’t know everything, do you?’
‘How can I be expected to know everything, especially when people keep things from me?’ Celeste said, not liking the direction their conversation was taking.
‘Perhaps if you talked to me more, you might know a thing or two,’ Evie said and Celeste could see that her eyes were filling with tears.
‘Evie,’ she said softly, reaching a hand out towards her sister and flinching when she backed away. ‘I’m sorry if I haven’t been there for you, but you know how mad and busy everything’s been since I came back.’
‘But everything is always mad and busy around here,’ Evie pointed out. ‘You’ve got to make time. Esther makes time for me.’
‘Esther’s retired. She has nothing else but time,’ Celeste said, beginning to get annoyed now. ‘Evie, what’s the matter?’
‘Nothing’s the matter,’ she said.
‘Well, something’s obviously bothering you. Come on – talk to me.’
Evie looked at her sister and, for a brief moment, Celeste thought she was about to say something, but suddenly there was a colossal sound of falling plaster or timbers or ceiling, or perhaps a combination of all three at once, from the north wing, followed by a torrent of expletives. Celeste’s eyes widened and she was torn between running to see what had happened and staying right there with her sister. The north wing won.
‘Wait right here,’ she said, pointing a determined finger at the spot where her sister was standing, but, as Celeste turned to go, the front door opened and Evie disappeared into the garden, slamming the door behind her in reproach. Celeste’s heart sank, and she couldn’t help feeling that she had failed yet again.
It was so unfair that there was nobody around to take the phone call or fulfil the order. So unfair and so typical, Gertie thought as she heard the cut-glass voice on the other end of the phone.
‘Hello? It’s Samantha Stanton.’
Gertie knew exactly who it was, and her heart raced at the sound of James’s wife.
‘Hello, Mrs Stanton. It’s Gertrude here. How can I help?’ she asked, all politeness as she dug her short nails into the palm of her left hand.
‘I’d like a few container roses delivered. Five, I think, would do the job. Would it be possible to have them today? My gardener is coming and I should like to get them planted. I’m not fussy what they are – just something that’s flowering right now. Red if possible’
Red, yes, Gertie thought. Red for anger. Red for danger. Red for the blood Gertie would like to spill.
She shook her head, dispelling her negative thoughts.
‘Of course,’ she said. ‘I’ll get something to you as soon as I can.’
She was shaking when she put the phone down and stood in the cool dark hallway for a moment until her heart rate returned to something approaching normality.
‘Okay,’ she told herself, ‘you can do this. Samantha Stanton is just another customer who wants some roses. You will choose them and you will deliver them and that will be an end of it.’ Still, as she headed out into the garden, she couldn’t help wishing the task hadn’t fallen to her.
Gertie chose five fabulous red Hamilton roses called Constable – a plant named after the famous artist who had painted all along the Stour Valley. Constable was a large healthy plant with the voluptuous flowers of the Bourbon rose, which had been so popular in the nineteenth-century. It also yielded a perfect old rose scent and was a popular choice with florists because of its tall, straight stems. Indeed, they had vases full of them in the manor on special occasions.
Cursing the absence of her sisters when she needed them most, Gertie loaded the van with the five container roses and drove the short distance into the village to the Stantons’ house, parking on the immaculate tarmac drive. She sat in the car as she gathered her thoughts. Did James know about this order, she wondered? Probably not; otherwise, he would have offered to collect it himself and contrived a meeting with her at the manor. Or would he have? After she’d witnessed the tender scene between him and his wife, Gertie really didn’t know what to expect from him anymore. All she knew was that she wanted to speak to him and that he wasn’t answering her texts, which was making her doubt their relationship for the first time. What was going on? She desperately needed to see him to find out. The thought that he might just have been using her for all this time, with no thought of their future at all, made her more anxious than she wanted to admit. She didn’t want to acknowledge that at all. Not yet. Not when there was still hope that she might hear from him.
She took a deep breath, trying to quench the anger that was boiling inside her. She had to think of the job in hand and get the whole thing over and done with as quickly as possible.
The barn conversion was pretty impressive with its enormous windows and neat black timber. It wasn’t the sort of property Gertie liked, but she could see its attraction all the same. James had told her that the place was nothing but lofty, draughty spaces and that he was looking forward to buying a teeny, tiny property with her one day – somewhere they could snuggle down together and keep warm and cosy – and it was that image Gertie held in her mind as she knocked on the front door and waited.
It took a while for Samantha to reach the front door, opening it from her wheelchair.
‘Ah, Gertrude, isn’t it?’ she said, her voice clear and clipped and her brilliant green eyes looking up at her.
‘Yes,’ Gertie said, looking down at the figure in the wheelchair. There was no denying that she was a beautiful woman. With a mass of fair hair which reminded Gertie – unsurprisingly – of a horse. She had the kind of even features and flawless skin that most women can only dream about.
‘Leave the roses over there by the wall and then come inside whilst I write you a cheque.’
Gertie returned to the car, took the roses out and went back to the house. The hallway was enormous and the tiled floor echoed as Gertie walked across it. Finding Samantha in the living room, she entered and, almost immediately, Clyde the greyhound left his basket and ambled across the room to greet her.
‘He certainly seems to like you,’ Samantha said with a gentle smile.
Gertie could feel herself blushing and hoped that she wasn’t giving herself away. ‘We have a dog at the manor,’ she said. ‘Perhaps Clyde can smell him.’
Samantha watched as Gertie looked around the room, noticing the enormous poster-sized photograph of Samantha on horseback racing across a beach, the horse’s legs splashing in the surf.
‘That’s the brute who threw me,’ she said matter-of-factly.
‘Oh,’ Gertie said. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘So am I,’ she said with a sigh. ‘You live and learn, don’t you?’
‘Yes,’ Gertie said.
‘You ever ridden?’ Samantha asked.
‘No. Never
.’
‘Good,’ she said. ‘James never took to it either.’ She laughed. ‘I did try with him but he wasn’t at home on a horse.’ There was a tender look in her eyes as she spoke about James and Gertie swallowed hard. ‘Now, do I make this cheque out to Hamilton Roses?’
Gertie nodded, glad that they were getting back to business. ‘Thank you.’
As Samantha wrote the cheque, Gertie glanced around the open-plan room again, taking in its enormous sofas and rugs in neutral colours. It was as bright and modern as Little Eleigh Manor was dark and old-fashioned. Gertie didn’t like it. It wasn’t a room she could ever feel comfortable in, she thought.
Her eyes then settled on a side table made of glass on which sat about a dozen photo frames. From where she was standing, she could see a photo of James and Samantha, their arms around each other, somewhere warm and sunny where Gertie could only dream of visiting. Another photograph showed them together on a boat in the middle of a turquoise ocean. It made Gertie think how little she had seen of the world. She’d barely been out of East Anglia, but how could she have gone off travelling when her mother had needed her help with everything?
‘You won’t leave me, will you, Gertie?’ Penelope had pleaded so many times that Gertie had lost count. ‘I need you here.’
‘Of course I won’t leave you,’ Gertie had vowed, feeling the full weight of her guilt for ever having contemplated her own needs. But she wasn’t going to stay in Little Eleigh forever because she and James were going to France or Italy or somewhere spectacularly beautiful, weren’t they?
Gertie had the good grace to blush at having such thoughts about another woman’s husband whilst in her very home. She looked at Samantha again and wondered what it must be like to be trapped in a wheelchair.
Suddenly, Samantha winced.
‘Are you okay?’ Gertie was beside her in an instant.
‘Get me those pills, will you?’ She nodded to a coffee table and Gertie retrieved a little bottle and handed it to her.
‘Can I get you some water?’
Samantha nodded. ‘Please.’ She waved a hand in the direction of the kitchen and Gertie left the room. Like the rest of the house she had seen, the kitchen was bright and modern and filled with the very best that money could buy. Gertie found a glass and filled it with water before returning to Samantha, watching as she took two of the enormous tablets.
‘I forgot to take them this morning,’ she said. ‘Well, that’s not entirely true. I’ve been trying to give them up. I hate putting these things into my body but it’s absolute agony if I don’t.’
‘Are you in constant pain?’
She nodded. ‘Pretty much,’ she said. ‘Some days are worse than others. They’re the days poor James gets it in the ear from me.’ She briefly closed her eyes and sighed.
‘Can I get you anything else?’
‘No, thank you,’ she said, her beautiful green eyes opening again. ‘You’re the middle sister, aren’t you?’
‘That’s right,’ Gertie said.
‘I think it was you James mentioned the other day. Said he’d seen you about the village when he was walking Clyde. He certainly seems to know you.’
Gertie realised that the dog had sat himself down next to her feet and she smiled awkwardly.
They held each other’s gaze for a moment and Gertie couldn’t help wondering what was going through Samantha’s mind. She certainly felt naked and vulnerable under that green stare. It was as if Samantha could see into her very soul and unearth all her secrets and all the plans that she was making to be with James.
‘Right – here you go,’ Samantha said at last, tearing the cheque from the book and handing it to Gertie. Gertie saw the slim gold wedding ring and the diamond solitaire, which seemed to taunt her with its smug beauty as if telling her that James would never give her such a gift.
‘I hope you’re happy with the roses,’ Gertie said.
‘I’m sure they will do the job perfectly,’ Samantha said. ‘Thank you for coming so quickly.’
Gertie nodded and Samantha gave her a smile that was warm and genuine and made her wonder if she was really such a difficult person to live with as James had made out.
She was just about to leave when her eyes focused on Samantha’s neck.
‘Are you all right?’ Samantha asked. ‘You’ve gone quite pale.’
‘I’m f-fine,’ Gertie said, her right hand flying to her neck to adjust her chiffon scarf. ‘I’d better be going. I’ll see myself out.’
‘Goodbye,’ Samantha said.
Gertie was shaking as she drove the short distance back to the manor, her fingers on the silver locket that James had bought her.
It was the exact same locket Samantha Stanton had been wearing.
‘It’s all rotten, see?’ Mr Ludkin said as he pointed to the timbers he’d unearthed in one of the rooms in the north wing. There were heaps of plaster on the floor and the air was full of dust.
‘Yes, I see,’ Celeste said, looking at the ancient wood before her.
‘Good job we caught it now, otherwise this whole wall might have collapsed and the roof above, too.
‘I thought the roof had already collapsed,’ Celeste said.
‘No, no. Just the ceiling,’ he said. ‘You’re lucky, mind.’
‘Lucky, right.’
‘Although this is going to add time onto the job. Going to have to get a specialist in.’
‘Right,’ Celeste said, visualising the money from the Fantin-Latour painting flowing away before it had even made it into her bank account. ‘But you can rescue it?’
‘Anything can be rescued if you’ve got the money to throw at it,’ Mr Ludkin said.
Celeste took a deep breath. ‘I was afraid you were going to say that,’ she said.
26.
Gertie was furious. Furious and confused. Since leaving Samantha, she’d rung James several times and texted him at least a dozen before he finally got in touch with her and they agreed to meet at the chapel that evening.
As she crossed the fields with Frinton, under the perfectly good pretence of giving him a walk, Gertie couldn’t help wondering if James would be there at all, after he’d let her down the last time. Was he trying to blow her off, she wondered? And what would he have to say about the necklace?
But, as soon as she saw him slouching against the ruined flint wall of the chapel in the last rays of the sun, her heart melted. It was impossible, absolutely impossible, to stay mad at a man as handsome as he was, and she cursed him for it.
‘Darling!’ he said, taking her face in his hands and kissing her fully on the mouth.
‘I need to talk to you,’ she said a minute later, determined to keep her head and have things out with him.
‘I love nothing more than to talk to you,’ he said. ‘Well, there is one thing I like more.’ He gave her bottom a little squeeze but she pushed him away from her.
‘James!’ she cried.
‘What?’ he cried back. ‘What have I done?’ He looked wounded and she instantly felt bad, but then she remembered how bad he’d made her feel – over and over again.
‘I visited Samantha today,’ she said.
‘What?’ he said, aghast.
‘She ordered some roses,’ she said, putting him out of his misery. ‘What – did you think I’d gone and revealed myself as your mistress or something?’
James ran a hand through his fair hair. ‘Well, I –’
‘I wouldn’t do that, James – you know I wouldn’t.’
He breathed a sigh of relief. ‘I know,’ he said.
‘But I should – I really should.’
He took a step towards her and caressed her cheek. ‘I’m going to tell her myself. As soon as the time is right.’
‘How long have I been hearing that?’ Gertie cried. ‘The time is never righ
t, is it? Well, what about my time? My time is right! I don’t have to stay here at the manor now that Mum’s gone. I can leave whenever I want to! And I want to, James. I really want to!’
He tried to silence her with a kiss but she pushed him away.
‘Gertie!’
‘Listen to me,’ she said.
‘I’m listening.’
‘I saw it. I saw what you’d done,’ she told him.
‘What are you talking about?’
‘The necklace,’ she said. ‘The silver locket.’
He looked confused but Gertie’s fingers pulled her own locket out from behind her scarf. ‘I can’t believe you bought me the same necklace as your wife!’
James seemed to pale a little. ‘I can explain,’ he said, like all men backed into a corner.
‘Can you?’ Gertie didn’t look convinced.
James took a deep breath. ‘Listen – I bought the locket for you but I left it in my jacket pocket and Samantha was trying to find the prescription I’d got for her and she opened the box and saw the necklace. I had to say it was for her, didn’t I? But I didn’t want to spoil the surprise for you. I know how much you wanted a locket and I wasn’t going to let Samantha wreck that so I went back and bought another.’
Gertie frowned. Was he telling the truth? It was hard to tell when he smiled like that at her, and she so wanted to believe him.
‘You do believe me, don’t you?’ he asked, moving closer to her, his long fingers scooping up the locket and gently brushing her neck.
Gertie stared at him, her brown eyes large and full of hurt, wondering if she should mention the night she saw him and Samantha together and if he’d have an explanation for that too. There probably would be one, she decided. She would simply have misunderstood the moment, he’d tell her. That would be it. So she didn’t mention it now. ‘You make me so mad sometimes,’ she said instead.
‘I don’t mean to,’ he said. ‘I want to make you happy.’
The Rose Girls Page 22
