The Snow Globe (27 page)

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.

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
C
s,” 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.”

“My father's party, too,” Daisy quickly replied. “It's their wedding anniversary, Reggie.”

Daisy glanced at Howard, who smiled back at her, and Reggie laughed. “Of course. I didn't mean to leave the old feller out, you know.”

When Mabel finally rose to her feet and said that if everyone didn't mind she was going to go to her boudoir and check on a few things, Daisy took her cue. “And if no one minds, I think I'll take a breath of fresh air before I retire—
early
, Reggie,” she added.

“I'll join you,” said Ben, pushing out his chair.

“No, please. You stay here . . . have a glass of port. I'm sure you'd rather,” she said, offering him her best smile.

“You sure?”

“Quite.”

She swept through the kitchen—offering a quick hello to Mrs. Jessop—before moving down the red tile–floored passageway and slipping out of the open door into the courtyard. She glanced to the door of the coachman's flat and then headed on, in the direction of the kitchen gardens. She knew he'd be there. When she saw him, standing by the cold frame, a watering can in one hand, cigarette in the other, she stopped and smiled and then moved slowly toward him.

He had dispensed with his hat and his jacket and tie, and his shirtsleeves were rolled back. His dark hair was cropped short at the back, and a thick, long wave hung over his forehead. As she
approached him, he turned, and the frown she caught only a momentary glimpse of was replaced by a languid smile as he raised his forearm to push back the dangling lock.

She moved alongside him and stood with him in silence for a moment.

“So . . . ,” he said.

“So,” she repeated.

“Tell me.”

She smiled, reassured by their understanding and that undeniable frisson. And then she quickly reminded herself of the facts: the hideous possibility—likelihood, she corrected herself.
But if he
is
my brother, is my love—affection—for him any less valid?
she wondered. She glanced to him: a young Howard, Iris had said, but Daisy couldn't see it. They were both dark, but Stephen's jaw was longer, leaner, and his nose and the line of his mouth were quite different.

“Tell you what, exactly?” she said.

The sun was beginning its descent, pouring molten gold over the tops of the trees, bouncing off the panes of the greenhouse. She lifted her hand to her brow.

“Shall we start off with . . . how you are, whether you're happy and how you feel about your impending marriage?”

“We're not . . . not exactly, not properly engaged,” she stumbled, lowering her hand, glancing down to the yellowing grass.

“Ah, not
properly
engaged? So what is it, then?”

“Well, it's an engagement, I suppose . . . a sort of engagement. But I hadn't realized people knew. No one's really meant to know, you see . . . not yet.”

“You mean it's a secret?”

“No. It's not a secret,” she said. “It's just that it isn't official yet. Only a few people know.”

“I see.”

“But that's not why I've come out here, not what I came to say.”

He put down the watering can and turned to her. He reached out, touched her hair with his finger. “You had it cut,” he said, staring back at her and tilting his head to one side.

“It was a birthday present from Iris. But I still have it all . . . in a bag back in London,” she added.

Despite the fantasy—the image she'd sometimes had of herself with short hair and painted lips—Daisy had been stubborn, had steadfastly refused to follow fashion and have her hair bobbed. Iris had despaired, had told Daisy that no one other than old ladies and little girls had long hair now. “And as for those eyebrows . . . ,” Iris had said, shaking her head, “we really must do something with them.” Daisy hadn't a clue what she meant. Did people actually have their eyebrows trimmed too? “They simply must be
done
. They're quite mothlike, darling,” Iris had said.

Iris had won in the end—with the hair, at least—and an appointment with Marcel had been her birthday treat to Daisy. “You're going to look
so
pretty, so fashionable and chic, darling,” Iris had told her in the taxicab en route to Harrods.

Daisy had had her hair cut a few times before, each time by Nancy, each time in the kitchen at Eden Hall and each time by only a few inches. But when she was twelve years old, more than six inches had fallen onto the kitchen floor, with a tearful Mrs. Jessop
gathering up each discarded lock and loudly blowing her nose. Later, after seeing herself in the mirror, Daisy had been banished to her room for what Mabel deemed a “ridiculous hysteria.”

So, after Marcel, after she'd seen the lengths of her precious hair lying on the floor of the salon, it felt like the severance of something far greater to Daisy, and she'd cried again. Marcel had flicked his hand, said a few words in French that Daisy did not understand and then had someone gather up the hair and place it inside a paper bag. As Iris settled the bill and pacified Marcel with enough kisses to twitch his sulky pout into a smile, the bag was handed to Daisy. Now the severed hair lay in the drawer of her dressing table at Sydney Street.

“Well, that's good,” Stephen said. “Perhaps you can give your bag of hair to your fiancé—as a wedding present.”

“Don't be like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like . . . this.”

“This?”

She saw his eyes, curious, defensive, and longed for him to make a joke, to smile or laugh.

“This is how it is, isn't it?” he began again. “You and me and life . . . Me, standing here with a watering can and a fag; you, coming to tell me that it's all fine and that we're still friends. Isn't that what you came out here to tell me? That we're still friends? And that it'll all be fine and dandy after you're married?”

She looked away. Daylight was fading. The sun had sunk farther beneath the beeches and pines, casting dark shadows about the
pink walls where the nectarines and peaches hung full and ripe. “Yes,” she said. “I did.”

“Well, you don't need to. We'll always be friends, you and me. We both know that. And no matter what happens, I'll always be here for you . . . or perhaps not here, but there—wherever
there
is. Anyway, you know what I mean,” he added, sounding vaguely irritated.

“Yes. And that's exactly what I wanted to say to you.”

He nodded, as though agreeing more with himself than with her. “As long as you're happy,” he said.

“What about you? Are you happy?” she asked. Though he didn't seem it at that moment, it was only polite to ask, she thought. And she wanted to know. And she wanted him to be happy. As she waited for his response, as another silence descended over them, she realized that she wished for him to be happy more than she wished for her own happiness.

“I'm not sure what happiness is,” he said at last, staring into the distance. “I reckon there are good moments and bad moments, that's all. And I experience both, just like everyone else.”

“I think it's all to do with love,” said Daisy without thinking.

“And marriage?” he asked quickly, turning to her.

“Yes,” she said. “That as well.”

He looked away and pulled a packet of cigarettes from his pocket.

“What about Tabitha?” she asked.

“What
about
Tabitha?” he repeated, lighting his cigarette.

“I just wondered . . . it seemed to be quite something last Christmas.”

He sighed. “It wasn't how it looked.”

Right at that moment she wished she could pull back; she wished she could speak to him about nothing and anything, but it was impossible. She couldn't. From somewhere deep within her came a shrill little laugh—one she'd never heard before—and then she heard herself say, “Yes, well, it did rather
look
like something, and the timing of your decision to . . . to spend the night with her was a little curious, Stephen.”

She couldn't quite believe what she'd just said, and yet there seemed to be more, desperate and bubbling, that had to be said: “And let me just tell you this,” she began again, “if you're going to go round telling girls you love them and inviting them off to . . . to foreign places, and then sleep with some of them, and write letters to the other ones, and then . . . then . . .” But it was all too much. It boiled over and out of her in a strangely gurgled scream.