When Stephen glanced up and saw her, walking across the courtyard toward him, he put down the chamois leather and quickly ran his hand over his hair. He’d dreamed of her, woken up thinking of her, walked out hoping for her. This day was no different from any other.
“I imagine you had a bit of a sore head yesterday,” Daisy said, smiling.
“Just a bit.”
“I wanted to—”
“I hear you and Valentine have become quite friendly,” he said quickly, interrupting her. And immediately he wanted to kick himself. He’d promised himself he wouldn’t mention it, wouldn’t say anything at all. He’d spent half the night telling himself that Vincent’s kiss had been stolen rather than given, and then lain awake at dawn torturing himself again with the image of them together. How long had their kiss lasted? Had Daisy enjoyed it? Was she in love with him?
“What do you mean?” Daisy asked.
He couldn’t hold back. “He told me, Daisy,” he said, louder and more dramatic than he intended, and sounding like a jealous lover—even to his own ears. “Valentine told me what happened between you,” he added, quieter.
“Oh, that,” said Daisy, turning away from him. “It was nothing. Anyway, he’s engaged to be married.”
“Which makes it all the more wrong.”
“I agree. It was a mistake . . . a huge mistake. And really, I never wanted to kiss him.”
“So why did you?” he asked, unable to stop himself.
“I’m not sure . . . Are you jealous?”
“No, but I was concerned. You’ve only just met the man,” he added, trying to laugh.
“Concerned? Your own behavior that same night was hardly exemplary. You were drunk, Stephen.”
“Yes, and I want to apologize. I know I made a fool of myself . . . It’s not something I’m very proud of.”
Her hair was loose, pushed behind her ears and hanging down beyond her elbows. She wore her long fur coat and a dark green woolen beret pulled so far down her head that it almost covered her eyes, which were shielded by a pair of sunglasses—belonging to Iris, he presumed. She kicked nonchalantly at the gritted yard, her hands pushed deep into her pockets. Then she looked up, stepped toward him and blew a strand of hair from her mouth.
“Really, why do you think you made a fool of yourself?” she asked.
She was smiling again now, and he couldn’t help but smile too. On one side of her mouth—the side that curved up, because she had that lopsided way of smiling and always had had—there was a dimple; a tiny crescent of a dimple that had been there as long as he’d known that smile. When she turned away—still smiling—she removed the sunglasses, lifted her head and squinted up at the sun. He took in her profile with an all too familiar yearning: the line of her chin, pale skin of her neck. What it must be to hold her, to hold her and kiss her, he thought.
She turned to him, stepped nearer. “Well . . . ?”
He was in his overalls, hadn’t yet combed his hair or shaved and looked a sight, he knew. He said, “Well . . . ,” staring back at her, “I hope I didn’t make you feel uncomfortable or anything.”
“Stephen, of every man I know—and granted, I don’t know too many—you’re the least likely to . . .” She paused. “You’re the one I most trust.”
He wanted to say then, Oh, Daisy Forbes, I Bloody Love You. I Love You So Much. But instead they stood smiling at each other, for what seemed to him like a blissful eternity. Eventually he said, “That makes me happy. And I hope it’ll always be the case.”
She looked away, embarrassed, he thought, and began kicking at the ground once more. “The other night,” she said tentatively, “when you talked about going to New Zealand . . .” She turned and glanced at him sideways with a new coyness. “Do you remember what you said?”
He nodded.
“Did you mean it?”
“I told you, I think I made a bit of a fool of myself.”
She shook her head. “No. Don’t say that. I know you were . . . tight, and it sort of makes sense, but I need you to tell me the truth . . . I need you to tell me if you meant what you said.”
“Every word and more.”
She stared back at him and nodded. Then, with a newly serious expression, she said, “I need to tell you something. The thing is, Stephen,” and he closed his eyes for a second or two, relishing the sound of his name on her lips, “I came back to your flat to tell you that . . . well, you see . . .” She paused. And he waited. But as he waited, as he stood waiting for words he was famished for, something began to flicker in his peripheral vision, and as it gathered substance and grew more solid and dark, he became aware that whatever it was, was moving at quite a pace from the back driveway toward them. Don’t look . . . Finish the sentence . . . Tell me.
“Stephen!”
It was Daisy who turned away first; he simply followed her gaze. But the sound of his name on another’s lips shattered the intimacy, stopped Daisy in her tracks and threw his heart like a small stone from a cliff. It was gone. The sentence could never be recovered. He knew it the second he turned his head and saw Tabitha Farley carrying what very much looked like his missing suit jacket.
“You forgot this the other night,” Tabitha said, moving rapidly toward Stephen and eyeing Daisy with a tight smile and a tart, “Morning.”
“Daisy Forbes—Tabitha Farley; Tabitha Farley—Daisy Forbes,” he said, introducing them plainly, then closing his eyes. Of all the moments for Tabitha Farley to appear. Tabitha Bloody Farley who had never in her life set foot on Eden Hall soil . . .
“Ah yes,” he said, regaining control and opening his eyes. “I was wondering where I’d left that.” He glanced to Daisy, who looked back at him, eyebrows raised, intrigued. “I was going to head over to the pub to see if it was there, in fact . . .”
But as soon as he’d said this he wished he had not, because Tabitha then began: “No, you silly, you didn’t leave it at the pub; you left it at mine! And I don’t know for the life of me how you walked home in the freezing cold in the middle of the night without it, but I said, I’ll make sure it gets back to him and, well, what with it being Christmas Day yesterday, I said, well, I won’t take it up there today because he’ll probably be busy and he won’t need it anyway if he’s indoors, and everyone’s always indoors at Christmas . . . but I knew you’d be wondering and I wanted to make sure you got it, so here it is,” she ended breathlessly, passing him the creased garment. She then moved alongside him, linked her arm through his and stared back at Daisy, who said something about it being a glorious morning and then turned and walked away.
He watched her go, watched her go as if she was leaving his life forever, and Tabitha must have sensed something, because she said, “Oh, did I just interrupt something? I almost feel like I have.”
And he wanted to say, Yes, you have, you’ve interrupted my life’s dream.
Mabel stood at the window looking up at the pale sky. Reg had already gone, had left after breakfast to set off for Dorking, where he was to spend Boxing Day with his late wife’s sister and family. He could of course have returned home the previous evening, but she had managed to persuade him to stay another night. “Why?” she had said. “Why go back there when you don’t need to, when you can go directly to Irene’s from here?”
She glanced at the envelope, propped up on her desk and addressed simply to “Mabel.” It was silly, really, how she felt about a note, and nothing more than a simple thank-you, but it was from him to her, and even the sight of her name in his hand made her feel quite giddy.
Their good-bye had been brief. He had said, “It’s been perfect. Thank you.” That was all. When he had held her hand, then lifted it to his mouth, she had smiled: His mustache always tickled her. Then he had handed her the note. Now, standing at the window in her boudoir with the door closed, she imagined him arriving in that place, Dorking.
&nb
sp; She was pleased that he wasn’t returning to High Pines yet. She had never told him, never said anything to him about the place, but it felt to her like a mausoleum; was always so cold and empty: too big for one person. She hated to think of him there alone. And, if she were honest, she didn’t care for all his Indian furniture and artifacts. They simply didn’t fit into a house in Surrey, she thought, becoming distracted. Was that Daisy—crossing over the lawn in that ridiculous old coat? She shook her head, moved away from the window and sat down at her desk.
Jessop would need to bring the car round for midday if the Vincents were to catch the 12:35 . . . if there was a 12:35, for no one seemed sure of the train timetable. And if there was no train, well, Jessop would simply have to drive them back to London.
It had been a surprise, the announcement of their departure a day early, not that she minded. In fact, she would, she thought, be a little relieved to see them go. Margot had said it was because of Val, that he had decided he needed to get back to work, which seemed queer to Mabel, because he didn’t really work, as such; he wrote, which he could surely easily do there. And as Howard had said earlier, when he’d come to speak with her about their train, it wasn’t as though he had any deadline or publisher waiting.
“Perhaps it’s not him,” Mabel had suggested. “Perhaps it’s Margot who wants to leave . . .”
Howard had laughed and said, “Well, whichever one of them it is, I couldn’t give a damn, to be honest.” But honesty, she knew, was not Howard’s strong suit, and she detected some irritation or even anger in his voice. She wondered if her husband and Margot had perhaps had some sort of falling-out, because there had, as Reg had pointed out, been a certain frostiness between her husband and his dear friend over the last couple of days.
Howard had never quizzed Mabel, never asked her why she had invited Margot. He knew. Mabel smiled. She had long since stopped hating Margot Vincent. In fact, she’d been surprised to discover that she quite liked the woman who had been in her husband’s life, been his confidante, for so many years. Without a confession from Howard, she’d never know for sure when his affair with Margot had begun, but of one thing she was certain: It was over; their relationship was platonic.
One of the reasons she had invited Margot for Christmas was so that she could see the woman again and watch her with Howard. She had seen for herself that there was no frisson, that while Margot was very possibly in love with—or in need of—Howard, he was . . .
Mabel sat up in her chair. Could it be? Was it possible that Howard was in love with her? The thought made her laugh out loud, and she shook her head. The timing was indeed curious. And yet it no longer mattered, any of it, because she had made her decision. And though the thought of leaving Eden Hall was still shocking—what would Howard say? how would they cope without her?—she now longed to escape, to escape from it all.
She glanced down at the scrawled lists scattered over her desk. Then, one by one, she picked up each piece of paper, tore it in two and dropped the pieces into the wastepaper basket by her side.
The snow-covered lawns were punctured by what seemed to Daisy to be thousands of footprints—birds, foxes, cats, dogs, deer and humans, which crisscrossed and zigzagged and led off in every direction. The thaw continued in the incessant dripping from every shrub and tree and had turned the once powdery snow to a watery slush underfoot. It would all be gone by tomorrow or the next day, she thought, sensing an end and raising her hand to her brow to squint up at the magnificent redwood against the pale winter sky.
She crossed over the driveway, trying to find and follow the pathway to the Japanese garden, treading carefully, feeling for the steps through her rubber boots. Here, there were minimal footprints. The white crystals she had watched falling from the oriel window with her father only four nights before remained almost undisturbed. But the ice on the pond had melted away to a small circle, and the old bench, which had looked for a day or two like a sumptuous white sofa from her bedroom window, offered only a thin icy cushion now. She ran a gloved hand along the slats, pushing off the snow to reveal the silvery lichen-covered wood, and then sat down—pushing her hands deeper into the torn pockets of her ancient coat.
The large bamboo bush had collapsed from the middle under the weight of the snow, and all was pale and silver and green. She watched a robin fly down to the edge of the pond, begin stabbing at the glacial water with its beak, its tiny head glancing up and around in jerky movements.
Tabitha? It was a cat’s name, surely? But that girl wasn’t worth thinking about: a waste of her time and energy. And so was Stephen. He was no different from her father and had just proved himself so. And Valentine Vincent was no better either, she thought, and really rather rude—because he had barely spoken a word to her since they’d kissed. A new wave of indignation rose in her. She smoothed down the fur pile of her coat. “I should have slapped his face,” she whispered. At least he would be leaving shortly . . . he and his mother. And good riddance to them both.
Benedict Gifford was the only honest one among them. After all, he had declared his intentions, behaved like a gentleman and never taken advantage of her or toyed with her emotions. He had not written words that were quite clearly lies, he did not have a fiancée, nor did he leave his clothing lying about in women’s houses. He was, in a word, decent.
“Very decent,” she said. And the robin flew off.
Stephen Jessop, on the other hand . . . No. She did not want to think about him. Would not let herself think about him. But the fact that he had gone back to that place, the Coach and Horses, and then . . . then somehow ended up at that girl’s house where goodness only knows what had happened, but where he’d certainly been comfortable enough, warm enough to dispense with his clothing, and after telling her, telling her only hours before—“only hours before!”—that he loved her, had always loved her, and that he wanted to take her off to . . .
“New Zealand!”
A liar. That’s what he was, another bloody liar. But why had he said those things—and what did he think she would do, throw herself at him? Thank God Tabitha Whoever She Was had appeared. And thank God she hadn’t said what she was about to say. She gasped and shook her head.
And that note, she thought, raising her eyes to the sky once more. I need to forget it. Because Tabitha had, in that two-second look, with her arm linked through his and staring back at Daisy, told Daisy all she needed to know: Stephen and Tabitha were lovers.
“Oh, Daisy, what a silly little fool you are . . .”
The tear, which escaped from beneath her sunglasses and rolled down her cheek, surprised her, until she decided that she had in fact chosen to cry, because it was part of a great catharsis that would only make her stronger and make it easier to start afresh. And that’s what she needed to think of and look to: new horizons and new people, so many new people to meet, she thought, wiping away more tears and trying to smile.
She could hear the familiar rumbling of a car engine in the distance and knew it must be Stephen warming it up, ready to transport the Vincents to the station. “He’ll probably marry her, go to New Zealand with her, and I will never see or speak to him again,” she whispered.
Iris was right: She needed to get away from there. She was, she realized, bored by the stalemate of her life, the relentless disappointment and unending expectation of something more than nothing. She was uninspired by everything and everyone around her, because she had watched and waited for too long. Was this all there was? she thought, glancing around her. Was this to be her life? At that moment she longed for every single thing to be different; a yearning so great, so powerful, so all consuming, that it no longer mattered whose feelings might be hurt.
She rose to her feet, resolute, and returned to the house by way of the ragged rhododendrons and hidden pathways of the northern shrubbery, and then via the yard. The car had gone, the garage doors were closed, the place deserted. She glanced up t
o the dust-covered windows of Stephen’s flat and wondered if Tabitha was there, inside, waiting for him to return from the station, and if his “Dear Daisy” letter to her was still by his bed. As she opened the back door and threw off her gumboots, another thought occurred: Perhaps Stephen had written to Tabitha also. Perhaps he was in the habit of writing to women; perhaps that was his seduction technique. She walked down the narrow passageway pulling off her heavy coat and hat, shaking out her hair, the sting of jealousy slowly giving way to the reignited prickle of indignation. She paused by a round window, staring out momentarily at the yard. Yes, with or without her father’s permission, she would go and live in London with Iris.
And she saw herself in wide-legged trousers on a velvet carpet beneath a glass porch; she saw herself with vermilion-painted lips and matching fingernails clutching a long cigarette holder and talking animatedly to people eager for her opinion. She’d reinvent herself. Have her hair cut, undoubtedly. Take up cocktails and dancing, definitely. People would be astounded by her energy, describe her as a whirlwind, an inspiration . . . She’d call everyone darling, blow kisses indiscriminately and laugh at things that weren’t funny. She’d have lovers, probably be married more than once . . . and cited in divorce actions. And one day, eventually, she’d pen a shocking memoir, in which she’d talk about her life and the men she had known and not loved.
The Snow Globe Page 16
