by Unknown
‘Sometimes, yes, but it just doesn’t seem right,’ he said. ‘There will be some days – some really brilliant days – when he seems so normal and so vivacious that it’s impossible not to love him. But then the cracks will start to appear again and the real Miles will surface, and that other person who I glimpsed briefly just disappears.’ Julian took a sip of his tea. ‘I’m sure you had good days with your Mum, didn’t you?’
Celeste gave a little laugh. ‘It’s all so mixed up in my mind now because the good stuff was somehow always linked to the bad.’
‘Like how?’ he asked.
Celeste took a moment as she remembered. ‘Like the time she bought me this ragdoll. I must have been about eight. I remember seeing it in a shop in town and my eyes were glued to it for what seemed like hours. Well, Mum went straight into the shop and bought it for me. I loved that doll so much. She used to sit at the end of my bed and I’d make funny little clothes for her. But I’ll never forget what my Mum said when she bought it for me. “Your father doesn’t buy you gifts like this, does he?” It seemed the strangest thing to say and I really didn’t understand it at the time but she did that sort of thing a lot. It was as if she wanted to be measured against other people.’
‘Like she was the best?’ Julian suggested.
‘Exactly.’
‘Miles is like that too. We were going to a party together to celebrate a friend’s birthday. He was Miles’s friend, really, but I’d met him a few times and liked the guy well enough. Anyway, I asked Miles if he had any ideas what I could get him. I’d heard he liked whiskey and Miles said to me, “Any bottle will do. Don’t go spending much, though.” Well, I’d just put a deposit down on my London flat and I hardly had two beans to rub together but I found a pretty decent bottle. Anyway, I got to the party and watched in horror as Miles presented Anthony with the most expensive bottle of malt whiskey I’ve ever seen. You can imagine my embarrassment when I handed over my little bottle.’
‘One-upmanship,’ Celeste said. ‘It used to drive me crazy. Mum was always comparing herself to other people. She’d say things like, “Your Aunt Louise couldn’t do my job” or “Aunt Leda’s hair is thinning. Have you noticed? It’s not as thick and glossy as mine.” As if I cared about such things.’
Julian smiled sympathetically.
‘And she could be incredibly charming with people,’ Celeste went on. ‘I would often watch in amazement as she entertained them. She became this bright, dazzling creature and they would hang on her every word, and I would try to connect the person I was watching with the one I knew behind closed doors.’
Julian nodded as if he understood.
‘She used that charm to make friends too. Over and over again I would see it. She would reel them in with such ease but she couldn’t keep them. Something in her would flare up sooner or later. It always happened. The only friends she managed to keep were the ones she didn’t see very often. They were lucky enough to escape the outbursts. That’s why I knew I had to get away,’ she said, ‘and that’s why I rushed into marriage. It was a mistake but, at the time, it seemed like a wonderful escape. I was trying to make something for myself – a new life – but I just made another muddle.’ She closed her eyes.
‘Listen,’ Julian said, getting up from the sofa. ‘I’ve tired you out with all this.’
Celeste jumped to her feet. ‘No, no,’ she said. ‘Well, maybe just a bit. I can’t seem to get my head round all this.’
‘There’s a lot to understand,’ he said, ‘but maybe it’ll really help you to process what’s been going on in the past. If anything, it’ll help you realise that none of it was your fault. That’s the thing that I couldn’t get to grips with for ages – I’d drive myself crazy trying to understand what I could have done to change things. You mustn’t do that to yourself, Celeste. You’re a good person. A truly good person.’ The expression in his eyes was soft and gentle and Celeste felt deeply touched by his concern for her.
‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘This is all so – so incredible.’ She gave a tiny smile. ‘But it’s been really good to talk about all this with you. I’ve never been able to do that with Gertie and Evie.’
Julian nodded in understanding. ‘And if you ever want to talk about it some more – to talk about anything – you know how to reach me,’ he said.
She nodded.
‘Take care of yourself,’ he said, and he reached a hand out towards her and squeezed her shoulder. It was so simple a gesture but it brought tears shimmering to Celeste’s eyes.
20.
Gertie was staking a fabulous pink rose called Summer Blush. It was one of the Hamiltons’ bestselling roses but it did need a little bit of support at this time of year when the plant was heavy with full blooms. Gertie took her time, supporting it gently and dipping her nose into a particularly perfect flower, its deep scent instantly making the world a better place.
She sighed, wishing roses had the power to banish all worries. James was being particularly elusive, texting excuse after excuse as to why they couldn’t meet up and cutting their brief conversations short whenever Gertie tried to talk about their future.
Since the great scone baking session in the middle of the night, she had been doing her best to avoid conversation opportunities with Celeste, deciding that now wasn’t the right time to confess to anything. She was desperate to talk to somebody about the situation she found herself in but she couldn’t help worrying what her big sister would think. Celeste had never been one to judge a person but Gertie was still anxious as to how her sister would react to the news that she was seeing a married man. You couldn’t really predict a person’s reaction, though, could you? And Gertie harboured the great fear that Celeste would think less of her.
Not for the first time, Gertie cursed herself for the situation she’d got herself into. Why, oh why, couldn’t she have met somebody else? Anybody else? But it was madness to rail against things she had no control over. Gertie was the sort of person who was led by her heart, and no amount of reasoning over her predicament would ever help. She was in love and that wasn’t going to be vanquished by having a few stern words with herself over the morals of the thing.
She was just settling the Summer Blush rose into place when she spotted a young man walking over the bridge across the moat. He was tall with blond hair that fell over his face in a messy skein, and he was carrying a large rucksack.
‘Lukas?’ Gertie cried in delighted surprise.
He raised a hand in greeting and they shook hands as they met beside the round rose border in front of the house.
‘How are you, Miss Hamilton?’
‘Gertie! You must call me Gertie. And I’m very well. How are you? I didn’t know we were expecting you back.’
‘Well,’ he said, looking down at his great big walking boots, ‘I wasn’t exactly sure what my plans were but’ – he shrugged – ‘I like it here. I really missed it.’
Gertie nodded, knowing exactly what he meant: he’d missed Evie.
‘So, how is everybody?’ he continued.
Gertie took a deep breath. ‘I’m afraid I’ve some sad news.’
‘Your mum?’
‘Yes. She died in May.’
‘God, I’m so sorry. How are you all coping? How’s Evie taken it?’
‘Badly,’ Gertie said. ‘Good days and bad days.’
Lukas nodded. ‘I wish I’d been here for her.’
‘It was probably best that you weren’t,’ Gertie told him. ‘Anyway, listen; let’s not talk about that now. Tell me, how was . . . where was it you went again?’
‘Everywhere,’ he said. ‘I went down to Cornwall for a bit and painted at St Ives. Then it was up to the Lake District and then down to London to visit the galleries.’
‘And now back to Suffolk?’
He grinned. ‘It’s a pretty good place for an artist.’
‘Indeed it is,’ she said, remembering earlier discussions they’d had about local boys Gainsborough and Constable
.
‘Is – erm – Evie around?’ he asked shyly.
Gertie nodded. ‘I think she’s in the potting shed. Follow me.’
They walked around the garden towards the little row of sheds in which was kept every kind of tool and contraption with which to deal with roses.
‘Evie?’ Gertie called. ‘You’ll never guess who’s here!’
Evie’s blonde head popped out of the shed and her dark eyes widened and her mouth fell open. ‘Lukas?’
‘Hello, Evie,’ he said, moving forwards and planting a kiss on her cheek before she could protest.
‘What are you doing here?’
‘Came to see you,’ he said simply, pushing a hand through the fair hair that had flopped over his eyes.
There was an awkward silence with them both staring at one another, each waiting for the other to speak. It was Gertie who broke it.
‘Well, aren’t you going to invite him in for a cup of tea and a bite to eat?’ she asked.
‘I suppose so,’ Evie said, sounding horribly put out that her work had been interrupted by an affable and very handsome young man.
21.
Evie was crashing pots around as Lukas was trying to talk to her.
‘Let me help you,’ he said.
‘I don’t need any help,’ she told him.
‘But I want to help.’
‘We can’t afford to hire you again,’ she said, avoiding eye contact.
‘You think I’m here for a job?’
‘Aren’t you?’
‘No,’ he said. ‘I told you – I came to see you.’
‘Well, it was nice seeing you again but I’ve really got to work now.’ Evie brushed passed him and walked towards the flower beds, a pair of secateurs in her hand.
‘I was thinking I might be able to stay here like last time,’ he said, quick to follow her.
‘What?’ she cried.
‘Stay here?’
‘Impossible,’ she said abruptly.
‘Why?’
‘Because we’ve got renovations being done to the house and we’ve already got somebody staying.’
‘In my old room?’ Lukas asked.
Evie didn’t answer. She felt mean because there were several bedrooms which Lukas could easily make use of but she didn’t know how she felt about him hanging around her twenty-four hours a day. She was still getting over her shock at him turning up again.
‘I’ll help with the chores,’ he said.
‘I’m not sure it’s a good idea, okay?’ The tone of her voice made him visibly flinch and he backed down.
‘Okay,’ he said.
She sighed. ‘Look, Lukas, I don’t know what you’re doing back here but I think you might have had a wasted journey.’
‘Isn’t that for me to decide?’
She stopped what she was doing for a moment, much against her will.
‘There’s nothing between us,’ she said in a low voice.
Lukas cocked his head to one side. ‘But there was, wasn’t there?’ he said, looking genuinely confused now.
Evie was elbow deep in compost now, which was probably just as well because he wouldn’t be able to see that she was shaking.
‘I need some space, Lukas,’ she said.
‘Space? But I’ve been away for months,’ he said.
‘Please,’ she said, her eyes two great wells of vulnerability.
‘Listen,’ he said, ‘I’m really sorry to hear about your mother. I know how much you loved her, and it’s a terrible thing to go through, but you don’t have to go through it on your own because I’m not giving up on you, Evie,’ he said. ‘I don’t know what’s going on here but I know that we had something good. Something really good! Evie? Are you listening to me?’
Evie shook her head. ‘No,’ she said, ‘and I think you’d better go.’
‘Okay,’ he said. ‘I’ll go. For now. But this isn’t the end, you know? I’m not giving up that easily.’
He shoved his hands in his pockets and she watched as he turned to leave, his shoulders slumped and his gait one of a rejected suitor. Evie stood there, chewing her bottom lip in agitation and wondering if she had just made a big mistake.
Later that afternoon, Evie was dusting Esther’s room, the cloth flying over the surfaces as if possessed. When she reached the collection of figurines, Esther barked from her chair.
‘I’d rather do those myself, thank you!’
‘Do you want me to help or not?’ Evie asked, an enormous scowl on her face.
‘Not when you’re in that mood.’
‘What mood? I’m not in a mood!’
‘Of course you’re not!’
Evie paused, duster in hand. ‘I’m just – just –’
‘What?’
‘Lukas is back,’ she blurted before she could stop herself.
‘Who’s Lukas – a lost cat?’ Esther asked.
‘No. A lost man.’
‘Oh,’ Esther said.
Evie sighed. ‘He was here earlier in the year doing some work for us in the garden whilst Mum was ill and I was taking care of her. He’s an art student and he’s been working his way around England looking at – whatever it is artists look at.’
‘And he clapped eyes on you, is that it?’
‘Something like that.’
‘But you don’t have eyes for him?’
Evie twisted the yellow duster in her hands as if she was wringing somebody’s neck.
‘I liked him,’ she said, ‘but I didn’t think I’d see him again. I didn’t ask him to come back.’
‘Then tell him to go. If you’re not interested, he’ll have to listen,’ Esther said.
Evie appeared not to have heard Esther.
‘I didn’t ask anything of him,’ she said. ‘I told him to go.’
‘What do you mean?’ Esther said, turning around in the winged chair and giving the girl her full attention. ‘Evie? Why is this worrying you so much?’
But Evie didn’t reply. She just shook her head and left the room with the duster in her hand.
22.
With a house as large as Little Eleigh Manor and only three other people living in it, one would have thought that it would be easy to slip out undetected, but Gertie’s experience of such things proved otherwise.
She was just halfway across the hall when she heard Evie’s voice coming from the living room. ‘Where are you off to?’
‘Why should I be off to anywhere?’ Gertie said, stopping briefly.
‘Because you’ve got that definite stride of yours that means you’re going somewhere.’
‘I’m only going for a walk if you must know.’
‘Can I come with you?’ Evie had got up and was now in the hall, looking at her sister.
Gertie’s mind whirled around a number of excuses but her sister seemed to take pity on her.
‘Go on, then,’ she said. ‘Be off with your volume of poetry or whatever it is you’re going to read in the dappled shade of some ruin.’
Gertie could feel herself blushing. ‘I’ll see you later.’
She left the house, anxious that Evie might follow her because she was, indeed, going to some old ruin – the little chapel on the other side of the river. She was glad that Evie hadn’t questioned her too much about her choice of dress because she was wearing her favourite, which was in the lightest of fabrics and was the exact colour of new bluebells.
The evening air was still wonderfully warm and the Stour Valley was bathed in golden light, turning the river into a sparkling wonder. The light breeze rustled the leaves of the willow trees and Gertie marvelled at the length of her shadow.
She should have been feeling more light-hearted than she was after the recent trip to Cambridge, but she’d only seen James a handful of times since then and each meeting had been horribly brief. Text after text had been sent explaining how very busy he was or how needy Samantha was being.
Forgive me, Gertie xxx
How many times had she forgive
n him now? And could she really be expected to do anything else in her position? She had no right to expect anything from him, really, and yet she couldn’t help feeling so horribly disappointed each time he let her down. Was it too much to ask to see him? All she wanted was to be in his company and to be held and kissed. How she missed those kisses. She lay in her lonely single bed each night imagining what it would be like to have James next to her. To be able to roll across a great double bed and kiss the man she loved whenever she wanted to. Especially when the woman he currently shared a bed with didn’t really want him there next to her.
But at least she was seeing him now, she thought, as she wended her way through a field full of black and white cows. Large raised heads watched her progress but decided that she wasn’t worth bothering about and continued with their evening meal. It was like a scene from a Thomas Hardy novel and Gertie couldn’t help feeling like one of Hardy’s doomed heroines, having fallen in love with the wrong man at the wrong time and wondering how the whole thing would end.
Keep hoping, she told herself. He’s on his way to you.
She wasn’t sure how and she wasn’t sure when but, one day, James would be hers and they would be together in their little Italian villa, starting a family of their own. How Gertie had clung to that dream during the dark months of Penelope’s illness. It had been the one thing that had kept her sane, the only little glimmer of light in a very dark world.
But reaching the ruined chapel, she saw that there was no James and no Clyde either. She checked her watch. Was she early? No. She walked through the tall blond grasses, admiring the patch of blue scabious, and found a low wall and sat on it, the knobbly flints uncomfortable under the thin fabric of her dress. She should have brought a jacket with her. The air was cooling rapidly now.
She looked out across the old grounds of the chapel. Beyond the tall pink spires of rose bay willow herb, there were two apple trees, their fruit as small and hard as golf balls. Gertie couldn’t help wondering if she would still be meeting James here in secret when the fruit was ripe. It had been a year since they had first met. A whole year of secret meetings and promises that, one day, they would be a proper couple. But, as time went on, it was getting harder and harder to believe that that day would ever come.
