It wasn’t an office job, but it was a job, and it had prospects. And though it didn’t pay much, not at first, the American tourists were renowned for their generous tips. But more important than any of this was the fact that the job came with accommodation: a small flat above the showroom next to the office. “Because we need someone to keep an eye on our beautiful new showroom at night,” the man had said.
It was just a start, Stephen thought. Better things would come. And so they had.
It had been when he was called upon to chauffeur an American expatriate writer—known to all as Mr. H—about the capital that things had taken off. Mr. H liked the girls and nightclubs and liquor—as he called it. One evening, he invited Stephen to have a nightcap with him at his hotel and gave him a copy of his new novel, telling Stephen in no uncertain terms to read it and to tell him what he thought. And so Stephen had, and did.
It was through Mr. H that Stephen met a publisher who said they were looking for someone to help write a new series of motoring guides to the British Isles, and Stephen told them that he believed it was something he could do. That had been in early March. By late May Stephen had penned most of his guide to Surrey. He had been allowed use of one of the older cars and had driven down each Sunday, touring some familiar and some not-so-familiar country lanes; and he went to the British Library, studied ordinance survey maps, local history books and other guidebooks.
This had been Stephen’s life for the last few months, but the previous Saturday he had taken the afternoon off to pay a long-overdue visit to his auntie Nellie. She had been delighted to see him standing on her doorstep, and there’d been the predictable oh my, how you’ve grown, as though he were still twelve years old and not twenty-two, and the usual teasing and stuff about girls: Was he courting? Was there anyone special?
He’d been half tempted to say, Well, actually, yes, Nellie, there is, and you look after her. But he didn’t. He smiled—almost a little too bashfully—and said not. And then, with studied nonchalance, he’d asked how the Forbes girls were keeping. And just as though she’d been waiting years to tell him, it all came tumbling forth. The older one was a card, Nellie said; glamorous, to be sure—and generous, too, because hadn’t she given her the very frock she was wearing and “these stockings!” she added, reaching to her knees. But the little one was her favorite.
Without thinking, he nodded and said her name: “Daisy.”
“Yes, Daisy . . . little Daisy,” Nellie repeated, “but far too young to be here in the city alone . . . To be frank, I’m surprised her mother allowed it. I can’t for one minute think Mr. Forbes was happy about the arrangement.”
“No, I don’t think he was. But she’s quite a determined sort. I don’t think she gave them much choice.”
“Much choice! She’s nineteen years old, not twenty-one, Stephen.”
“Well, I suppose they reckoned on her being taken care of by her elder sister—and you, of course. And she’s engaged. I hear tell she’s engaged to be married . . . ,” he added, needing more.
Nellie rolled her eyes and shuffled. “Engaged . . . that slip of a thing? And what does engaged mean anyways? One thing I do know,” she said with emphasis, shaking her head, “is whoever’s engaged to her doesn’t love her enough. I’ll be very interested to take a look at this feller she’s got herself engaged to when I go down to Eden Hall next week,” she added.
The invitation, a thick white card with black scrolled lettering, stood on the mantelpiece next to a small framed photograph of Nellie and her husband on their wedding day. Nellie had been quick to show Stephen the invitation. “See that . . . ‘Mr. and Mrs. Howard Forbes request the pleasure of Mr. and Mrs. George Wintrip,’” she said, pointing to the inked name. “Of course, I shan’t be bringing him,” she went on. “He’ll only show me up. But I’m going to have a few days down there with your mother. No point in traveling all that distance for just the one night . . . And perhaps you’ll be able to show me about the place, the lovely gardens and countryside, eh?”
“I’m afraid I shan’t,” he said. “I’m going down for the party because my mother insists, but I’ll be returning here to London the following day.”
Nellie listened intently as Stephen told her about his guidebooks. She clapped her hands together. “Well, I never! I’ve no doubt you’re going to end up a millionaire!” she declared.
Stephen smiled. Nellie’s idea of success, of wealth, was borne of too many days on her hands and knees in someone else’s house, returning to an idle, penniless husband each night. He sat back in his chair and stretched out his legs. The place hadn’t changed since his last visit, some eight years before, after the war, when he and his mother had visited. “Strange to be back here,” he said. “To think I spent some of my first few years here . . . with you.”
“Do you remember any of it?”
“Of course,” he said, only half lying, because he could remember some though not all of that time.
“Happy days,” said Nellie, glancing away, smiling.
Stephen sat forward. “Nellie,” he said, tentatively, “when you first took me in, were you told anything about my parents?”
Nellie pushed her crossed fingers beneath her and shook her head. “No, dear . . . just that they had gone.”
Later, Stephen walked the hot pavement from Nellie’s house in Fulham to the King’s Road. His aunt had told him the location and the name. A dark green awning just as his aunt had described hung over the shopwindow, and from the outside it was hard to see who—if anyone—was inside. He had pressed up his hands, peering in through the glass, and could see the dark wooden shelves and tables of books. When he’d entered, the bell above the door had chimed and his heart had chimed too, but the only person to appear was an elderly gentleman in an old-fashioned frock coat, who had asked, “Looking for anything in particular, sir?”
He had stood for twenty minutes or more, surveying shelves, casting surreptitious glances to the door at the back of the shop, from which the elderly gentleman had emerged. Finally, before leaving the shop, he had asked the man, “Is Miss Forbes in today?”
“No, not on Saturday afternoons,” the man replied. “Can I pass on any message, a card?”
Stephen had a card, a business card, but he didn’t leave it or any message. He walked south and stood on Battersea Bridge for some time, staring out across the river toward Chelsea.
The train had stopped. Daisy raised her eyes to the verdant meadows and pastures; to the cows ruminating in the corners of fields beneath leafy branches; to the distant cluster of tile-hung cottages and slate steeple. It was a landscape she recognized and knew. She lifted her finger to the glass, stroking the trees, the cream-colored cows, tracing a church steeple all the way up to the blue.
She closed her book, lifted her straw boater from the seat next to her, then opened her purse to check for her ticket and for the sixpence for the porter. She put on her white gloves, fastening the tiny pearl buttons at her wrists, and as she waited for the train to move on, she wondered again if Ben was on the train and how she would explain her failure to meet him.
It was a jolt he hadn’t expected: an unscheduled stop. Work on the line, someone in his carriage said. Glancing away, turning to a world drenched green, Stephen saw only white winter, and her, as she had been the last time he had seen her, standing in her fur coat, kicking at the ground. You’re the one I most trust, she says quietly. She looks up at him. Her eyes are shining, gray-green shot with flecks of copper and gold: like late summer trees, he thinks. She moves nearer, smiles and says his name: Stephen . . . He feels the rise and fall of his chest, hears his own intake of breath. Did you mean it?
Every word and more, he thought, as the train moved on.
Standing beneath the stone archway, Daisy heard her name and turned to see Ben, pink faced and crumpled. It took seconds—less than seconds—for her eyes to alight on Stephen walking
from the platform behind Ben. In a brown trilby hat and dark suit—looking as dapper as any city commuter, and taller than most—he was impossible not to notice. And so surprised by the sight of him, there, like that, Daisy failed to hear Ben’s immediate protestations.
When Stephen raised his eyes and saw her, his face erupted into that familiar smile she’d so missed, and forgetting Ben, forgetting everything, Daisy said his name and stepped forward.
Stephen took hold of her hand, and they stood for some moments staring at each other and smiling, unable not to.
“Not in New Zealand, then,” she said.
“Ah, the errant chauffeur,” muttered Ben, pulling out his handkerchief and wiping his wet brow with it.
“No, not in New Zealand,” said Stephen, still smiling, still holding on to her hand.
Ben cleared his throat.
Daisy pulled away her hand. “You remember Stephen?” she said, stepping back, turning to Ben.
Ben threw Stephen a quick smile. “So how are we meant to get from here to Eden Hall?” he asked.
Daisy glanced about the cars parked in front of the station. “Well, seeing as my father doesn’t appear to be here, we’ll have to take a taxi.”
Stephen picked up his small suitcase and a bag from a familiar London store. “See you both tomorrow,” he said.
“But where are you going?” Daisy asked. “Aren’t you coming home?”
“Yes . . . I was going to take the bus.”
“Don’t be silly; there’s no need to.”
Minutes later, Daisy sat between the two men as they headed out of town in the back of a taxi. She kept her eyes fixed ahead as she asked Stephen about his job. His answers were as perfunctory and polite as her questions, and his questions to her as polite and perfunctory again.
Every window of the taxi was open, the air flowing through it scented with the fragrance of the summer hedgerows, of honeysuckle and wild jasmine, warm pine and heather. As the taxi emerged from the sun-dappled lane at the crossroads, Stephen turned to Daisy. “No Fletch, eh? I wonder where he is now.”
Daisy looked back at him and smiled. “Yes, I wonder.”
Without his hat, she saw now that the pale winter pallor of last Christmas had changed to a sun-burnished glow, and that he had cut himself shaving. She noticed once more the line of his top lip, thinner than the bottom; that his nose was not straight—like Ben’s—and that, smiling back at her, one side of his mouth twitched, as though he wished to say something more.
“Fletch? Who’s that?” Ben asked.
“Oh, just someone we used to know and see about here,” Daisy replied, turning her head to the road ahead once more.
There was so much Ben didn’t know. And how could she ever begin to tell him, to explain that history, her history, which Stephen knew because he had shared it. She glanced down at Stephen’s hands—strong, masculine hands—resting on his lap, fiddling with the felt brim of his hat: tanned, like his face, and cleaner than they used to be, she thought. His right arm rested against hers, and the feel of it and warmth of him made her eyelids heavy, as though she were drugged, happily drugged and languishing in some vaguely recollected paradise.
“What’s in the Liberty bag?” Daisy asked after a moment.
“A present for my mother . . . a silk scarf.”
Daisy looked at him again. But his eyes were closed, his face turned to the open window.
“So, Jessop, will you be coming to the party?” Ben asked as they approached the entrance to Eden Hall.
“Afraid so,” he replied.
Daisy smiled.
“And bringing anyone?” Ben asked.
Stephen said yes, he would be bringing along a guest. As Daisy turned to him, he went on to explain that his mother had taken it upon herself to invite Tabitha Farley as his partner. “Because your mother had kindly written and partner on my invitation, my mother seems to think it’s compulsory,” he added, staring back at Daisy.
Ben laughed loudly. “Compulsory!” he repeated. “I like that . . . Yes, I rather like that.”
Then the gardens unfolded in a haze of blue-green: immense herbaceous borders framing manicured lawns, trimmed shrubs and hedges of box, and the large canvas marquee, where men were carrying in rolls of carpet and stacks of gold-painted chairs.
“It all looks splendid,” said Ben.
Yes, Daisy thought, it does.
They drew to a halt outside the open front door. Stephen took Daisy’s bag from the trunk of the taxi and placed it down on the step. He smiled at her. “Well, see you both tomorrow,” he said again, and then disappeared under the archway into the courtyard and the back of the house.
Watching him go, Daisy had a sudden and intense yearning to call after him, to shout out his name and see him turn to her and smile.
“Damned queer feller,” muttered Ben, walking on ahead of her through the open door.
“Why queer?” Daisy asked, picking up her bag.
Ben glanced back at her. “The chap never even congratulated us.”
“Congratulated us?”
“On our engagement!”
“Oh, that,” she said, following him inside and wondering if Stephen knew. But as soon as she saw Mabel, walking across the hallway toward her, she dropped her bag to the floor and fell into her mother’s arms.
Chapter Twenty-five
The meal that evening included potted shrimps, a cheese soufflé and sole Véronique. Mrs. Jessop had obviously been honing her culinary skills in Mabel’s absence, Daisy thought. But there were only five of them at dinner: Daisy, Ben, Howard, Mabel and Reggie. Everyone else would be arriving tomorrow, apart from Iris and Val, who had changed their plans yet again and might be arriving later that night, Mabel said. And Noonie was once again having tinned peaches and ice cream on a tray in her room. According to Mabel, this was what she lived on now.
But despite any worries about Noonie, Mabel had lost a worrisome look from her features. Home for only ten days and still glowing from her months on the continent, she had fewer lines in her face and she was prettier, younger and more relaxed than Daisy had ever known her. She smiled and laughed a great deal, had taken up smoking and appeared to have developed a new sense of joie de vivre, a tolerance of all things and people, encapsulated in a new and irreverent humor.
“England really is so ridiculously stuffy and uptight by comparison—and for absolutely no reason,” she told Daisy. “There, you can be whoever you want to be, do whatever you want—and nobody bats an eyelid. You really must go, darling,” she added. “You must experience it all.”
Reggie, as attentive as ever, backed up each and every one of Mabel’s observations and pronouncements and laughed on cue. But from time to time Daisy detected some trace of mild irritation from Mabel toward him and wondered if they’d had some sort of falling-out overseas.
And she, too, was irritated. Irritated by Ben’s fawning behavior toward Howard. He seemed desperate for her father’s attention, uninterested in anything anyone else said. Feigning laughter whenever Howard said anything vaguely amusing, nodding whenever her father spoke. Ben was so pale by comparison to Stephen, she thought, watching him; so pale in every way.
But the most changed of them all was Howard. Iris was right: There was less of him. But with his weight loss he’d also shed years. For most of the meal he simply sat back in his chair, smiling as he watched and listened to Mabel, as though she were a vision dropped down from heaven. And watching him watching her, Daisy felt something hovering in the ether between her father’s quiet demeanor and her mother’s exuberance: a meeting of eyes, a lingering stare, or mirrored smiles; like a private joke or some secret, new understanding.
“Half a cutlet . . . half a cutlet!” Mabel was saying now, shaking her head. “She said, ‘Don’t worry about supper for us; we can always stop off on the way and share a cutlet if we
get ravenous . . .’” Mabel turned to Daisy: “Does Iris ever eat?”
“She’s following a special diet. I can’t remember what it is . . . but you’re allowed to eat blancmange . . . and beetroot. Anything beginning with the letter B, I think.”
“Well, she seems to have moved on to Cs,” said Mabel, lifting her glass to her lips and smiling—quite coquettishly, Daisy thought—down the table at Howard.
That evening, dinner went on for longer than usual. The wine flowed, and between Mabel’s reminiscences and laughter, and Daisy’s observations of a new dynamic at play, her thoughts drifted back to Stephen. Yards away, minutes away. The sight of him at the station, the realization that they had traveled on the same train; sitting next to him in the taxi, his disregard for Ben—and perhaps even for her; his strangely sad demeanor—his hat, his face, his hands . . . everything about him had imprinted itself boldly on her mind. She had missed him, missed him more than she’d realized, and now she longed to be with him.
She wondered how and when she could escape from that room and go to find him, because, at the very least, she wanted to mend things between them, to reestablish their friendship. Whether or not he was her brother, he had always been her friend, her very best friend. And she saw him once more emerge from the station, the brim of his hat shading his face. She saw his hands, his smile, his eyes . . .
“You’re very quiet, dear,” her mother said, breaking in.
Daisy shrugged. “Just a little tired.”
“Well, an early night—a good night’s sleep—will do you no harm,” said Reggie, nodding at Nancy to clear away their plates. “We all need to be on top form for your mother’s party tomorrow.”
The Snow Globe Page 23
