Promises to Keep (21 page)

“Leave it to me. I’ll surprise you,” she says, walking over to the fridge.

 

It is no surprise to Honor that Steffi became a chef, because Honor was always cooking. Both Callie and Steffi, when young, would perch on stools and help her, and she remembers Steffi cooking herself elaborate meals when she was only, what, five? Or six?

Today’s child would never be allowed anywhere near a hot stove, or boiling water, but Honor has a clear memory of Steffi making scrambled eggs first of all, when she was around four, then the obligatory cookies and muffins, and then devising entire menus for the whole family.

She would sit at the kitchen table with Honor’s cookbooks all around and choose something. She used a lot of pork, because George, Honor’s second husband, adored pork, and Steffi adored George.

For a very long time, Honor stands at the counter and thinks. She has had a perfect life. Good God, it was hard when George died. So hard, for so long. But she continued with her life, started a book group, attended classes; all things she would not have had time for in her marriage.

And she found that life could be good again. Better than good. Wonderful. Surrounded by family and friends, she tries very hard not to dwell on loneliness.

Or fear.

She wishes she didn’t feel quite so fearful now.

N
ow that it’s about to become reality, Steffi is really not sure about this whole moving to Sleepy Hollow business. Had it been San Francisco, for example, or even Portland, Oregon, she would have jumped at the chance, but Sleepy Hollow, New York? What is there for a single girl to even
do
there?

Aren’t places like Sleepy Hollow for married people like Callie and Reece? For married couples with small children who are looking for a proper house and space in which their children can play?

Granted, it will be free accommodation, and there is a part of her that has already started romanticizing about her life in the country: big roaring fires; long walks with Fingal loping by her side; cozying up on the sofa next to some long-haired rock star who, miraculously, lives at the end of the dirt road and has been looking for a gorgeous woman just like—well, who would believe it!—just like Steffi.

Then she thinks about what it will actually mean: getting up at the crack of dawn to feed the chickens and the goats, never being able to find a plumber who can come within less than a week, so having to live without essentials, like toilets, for example. On top of which the sheer loneliness may be enough to drive her crazy.

Where will she work? Who will she talk to? Will she be accepted? Mason assured her it would be fine, that there are tons of interesting people around and it isn’t exactly deepest darkest countryside. But what would have felt like a fantastic adventure in her twenties, now, at thirty-three, just seems like it might be a big bad mistake.

Steffi steers the rental car off the highway and peers out of the window at the sky. Raining all morning, the sun is finally struggling to break through, and she thanks God, again, for GPS, which was surely the only way she was ever going to make it here without a minor heart attack.

She may spend time close by in Bedford, and she may have been in New Canaan just the other day, but she has never actually been to this town before, and a sense of direction has never been her strong point.

It looks much like suburbia, she thinks, following the GPS, but as she keeps driving and the sun comes out at last she passes through a pretty town with old-fashioned stores and a true country village center, and smiles at the charm.

She follows on down the road, past white clapboard antique houses, falling-down iron picket fences, past a few barns that have clearly been there for well over a hundred years.

The next left, Matilda tells her—Matilda being the calm and assertive voice of the GPS—and she turns left, then right, then right again, onto exactly what Mason had described: an old dirt road that looks as if it will lead to nowhere.

As she makes the turn, Fingal, who has been fast asleep on the backseat, suddenly lifts his head and stands up, his tongue hanging out as he starts panting and whining in pleasure.

“You know you’re home, boy, don’t you?” she says, and Fingal’s tail whacks her on the shoulder.

She bumps down the track, glimpsing the roof of the house as she rounds the corner, and then over the cobbled apron, along the graveled driveway and up to a pretty, Italianate farmhouse, with strategically placed rocking chairs on the wide, wraparound porch.

“Wow!” Steffi whistles to herself, getting out of the car and standing for a moment, while Fingal whirls around in delirious circles with, Steffi would swear, a genuine smile on his face.

She watches him for a few seconds before doing a slow turn to take in the view. Next to the house is a large wooden barn and behind it she can see the corner of a cage—must be the chicken coop.

“I’m so sorry I can’t make it down again to show you myself,” Mason apologized the other day, as he handed her a key. “But you’ll be fine. There’s no one living there now, but there’s a guy down the road who’s helping me out with caretaking stuff. I’ll try to get hold of him to explain who you are.”

She walks down past the side of the house, and grins when she sees the chickens, squatting down on her haunches to get a closer look and clucking gently at them, surprised and delighted when they strut over to see if she has anything for them.

“Sorry, girls,” she says. “Not this time. But maybe next.”

Standing up, she holds her breath for a moment, for Mason had said nothing about the stunning views from the back porch, stretching out over the hills for miles.

“It’s beautiful,” she whispers, before nosing round the corner to where the miniature goats are grazing. They too are friendly, and she scratches their heads in delight as she croons softly to them.

After a wide stretch, she steps up to the back porch, calls Fingal to her side, and walks around to the front door. Mason has told her he never bothers locking it when he is there, but the house has been empty for a while, hence the need to give her a key. It turns easily and the door pushes open to reveal a large hallway with a curving staircase on one side and a marble fireplace on the facing wall.

A small sofa is on one side of the fireplace, a wing chair on the other, and Steffi sinks down on the sofa. There is no fire in the grate, but it is easy to imagine one, and what could be nicer than walking into an entrance hall that feels like a living room with a roaring fire and squishy sofa?

She gets up, almost reverentially, and peeks through the archway into a gracious living room with original floor-to-ceiling French doors on one side. The wide-planked floorboards are stained a dark ebony, with worn Tabriz rugs, and every wall is lined with bookshelves, thousands of books everywhere she looks.

The sofas are a dark gray, with large, soft, gray and cream striped cushions; there are faded ticking curtains. The aura is one of shabby elegance, much like, Steffi thinks, walking around and examining the small porcelain boxes grouped on an end table, Mason himself.

Lithographs are propped up here and there, framed, resting on the bookshelves, leaning on the books themselves. She has no idea if they are valuable, if they are original lithographs, numbered or prints, but she recognizes some: a couple of Picassos, a Matisse, a Leger.

Back through the hallway Steffi finds his study, and she smiles at the thought of Mason sitting here, for his personality is imprinted on every surface. From the large old mahogany desk with the antique reading lamp to the many more prints and pictures covering every spare inch, to the haphazard piles of books on the floor, all around the edge of the room, each of them threatening to topple over.

Big rattan baskets hold dozens of magazines.
Architectural Digest
,
Publishers Weekly
,
Time
,
The New Yorker
.

A cracked-leather wing chair sits next to the fireplace, with a high footstool, a mohair blanket thrown over the arm. Steffi sits down and puts her feet up, leaning back and smiling as she surveys the room.

This is indeed a room in which she could be happy.

Onward and upward, she thinks, standing up to move through the corridor under the stairs, and into the kitchen.

“There you are!” she says, kneeling down to pet Fingal, who is already curled up in a huge dog basket in the corner, gnawing on what looks like a well-loved rubber toy.

Large and bright, the room is airy, the table a large scrubbed farmhouse, the cabinets a pale gray. It isn’t perfect—the marble countertops are marked and stained, scratches from many decades dug deep into its patina—but this is what Steffi would call a true cook’s kitchen.

She turns to see a professional La Cornue oven in the corner, complete with raised hot plate. Well, of course. As if she would expect anything less from Mason.

Copper pots hang from a large baker’s rack above the island, and as Steffi moves around she keeps one hand on the marble, stroking it gently as she walks, feeling the love the stone has absorbed over the years.

Yes, she thinks, breathing in deeply. This feels right. I
belong
here.

The words come to her without her even thinking about it. But there is no longer any doubt. This house has been waiting for someone to come and breathe some life into it.

This house has been waiting for her.

 

Upstairs she finds the master bedroom at the back of the house, with those incredible views. A canopied bed piled with pillows; a Victorian claw-footed tub in the connecting bathroom that is bigger than the bedroom she grew up in; a fireplace—another one!—at the foot of the bed. Steffi kicks off her clogs and falls back on the bed, grinning.

She shifts her bottom up into the air and digs her phone out of her back pocket. Forgetting about the time difference in London she types a text message.

Minutes go by, then her phone beeps.

M
ason drops the BlackBerry on his desk, stands up and stretches, a smile on his face. His heart is warm, he realizes. His beloved house is no longer sitting cold and empty, or rented to an unknown tenant, his most treasured possessions having to be boxed up and locked away in the attic.

His beloved house now has Steffi inside. The thought spreads, warm and comforting, feeling very, very right.