The Snow Globe (31 page)

“What sort of music do you like, my dear?” one of the old gents asked.

“Oh, all sorts of things, really . . .”

“And do you dance much up in London?”

“Oh yes, sometimes. But I'm not terribly good at it . . . not like Iris,” she said, turning her head back to the dance floor.

“Ah yes, she's quite a goer, isn't she?”

“Yes, she is.”

“Your mother and father look very happy . . .”

“Don't they?”

“And what about you? Got yourself a young man yet?” the man asked, moving closer. “Someone in particular?”

Daisy shook her head. “No. No, not yet.”

“Hmm, but plenty willing, I bet. Pretty young thing like you, eh? Shouldn't be a wallflower, what!”

Eventually, she said, “Do excuse me.”

Finally, Stephen saw her. Turned to see her rise from her chair, watched her weave her way through the scattered tables and chairs and leave the tent.

Outside, dusk had descended, stars had begun to emerge. The moon peeped nervously from behind a tall chimney, and along the terrace colored lanterns burned upon tables where people sat smoking in rattan chairs. Waiters and waitresses moved back and forth across the graying carpet from the house to the tent, carrying trays and bottles and glasses, while men stood in huddles, leaning on sticks, murmuring and puffing on cigars.

He found her. Standing in the shadows with her back against the canvas, ethereal in white, barely there. She shook her head and waved him away. When he caught her wrist, a large tear fell onto his hand.

“What's this?” he asked. “Why are you out here, all alone and sad?”

She shook her head again, didn't speak. He released her wrist, stood alongside her, his back pressed up against the canvas now too, his eyes searching desperately for the same stars.

The air was warm, scented with rose and lavender and jasmine. The music inside the tent altered tempo. “That'll be Iris and the black bottom,” he said, pulling his cigarettes from his pocket. “You can tell me, if you want to,” he added. “You know that. You must know that by now.”

“Do you have a handkerchief?” she asked.

He reached to the breast pocket of his jacket and handed one to her. She dabbed her cheeks, then handed it back to him. “I don't want to talk about it,” she said. “And I don't want to be sad . . . not tonight.”

He lit a cigarette, handed it to her and then lit another.

“But I want to tell you something,” she said, turning to him, leaning her shoulder against the taut canvas, the cigarette in her hand.

He couldn't bear to look at her right at that moment, couldn't bear to look back into her tear-filled eyes and not be able to wrap his arms around her and hold her.

“I've called off my engagement . . . But that's not why I'm sad,” she quickly added.

“Your
unofficial
engagement,” he said, smiling, finally glancing up at her.

“Yes, my unofficial engagement . . . destined never to be official.” She closed her eyes for a few seconds. “Oh, Stephen, what a fool I've been . . . Anyway, it's over, finished.”

“Am I allowed to ask why?”

She shrugged her shoulders: “I simply came to my senses. Realized, A, I don't love him, B, I never could . . . and, C . . .”

“C?”

She took a moment. “C . . . I don't even really like him,” she said, staring back at Stephen, sounding newly dismayed.

Stephen shook his head and then laughed. He stared up at the sky and closed his eyes:
Thank you, God.

“God only knows!” Howard bellowed.

The music was far too loud. Mabel grimaced, shook her head. He bent down, held his hand to her ear: “No sign of either of them.”

It was always the same two, Mabel thought, only vaguely
irritated: her mother and Daisy. Maybe it was genetic, this penchant for wandering. Howard sat down. He moved his chair nearer to Mabel's. “I wanted to dance with
her
,” he mouthed.

“Noonie?”

“No!
Daisy.
”

Howard and Mabel had danced the first few dances together, then taken turns across the floor with various partners. Mabel glanced back at the dance floor: Iris was leaping all over the place now, wiggling her bottom about in the most unladylike way . . . And there was that girl again, the one with the large flower hanging over her forehead—and not wiggling her bottom but
on
her bottom. Mabel glanced to Howard, who rolled his eyes and laughed.

“Who is she?” Mabel mouthed.

Howard shook his head:
“No idea.”

Mabel watched Gifford pull the poor creature back up and onto her feet. She watched the two exchange a few words and then disappear through an opening at the back of the tent, and she looked to see if Howard had seen, too. He had. She turned her attention back to the dance floor to look for Reggie and Margot . . .

And there they were, trying to keep up with the young: Margot following Iris's every move and sticking out her bottom; Reg jiggling his limbs like an imbecile. It was most unseemly, and though she knew that he had, she rather wished Howard hadn't seen, hadn't seen Reg make an ass of himself in that way, and with Margot.

When the music paused, Howard leaned over to her. “I have something for you . . . something I want to give you, but not here.”

“Oh, but, Howard, I told you . . . no more jewelry, no gifts.”

He smiled, rose to his feet, took her hand and led her out from the marquee.

Music drifted over the garden. A lantern with stained-glass panels flickered on the table where they sat. Noonie had been taking a breath of air when she'd come across them, standing outside the tent. She was looking for a chair, somewhere cool to sit down, she'd said. “Far too warm in there, and so terribly loud.” Stephen had suggested the terrace and had then gone back inside the tent to get the women a glass of champagne. As soon as he'd disappeared, Noonie had turned to Daisy and said, “Is he the one, then? Do you think he's the one for you?”

“Who—
Stephen
?”

“Yes. He's the one you always turn to, isn't he?”

Daisy laughed. The notion wasn't so much ridiculous as her grandmother's suggestion of it, and she was embarrassed, and unsure at first what to say. “Stephen's like a brother, an older brother, that's all,” she said.

But Noonie went on—and in something of a rush. “Where love is concerned one must always follow one's heart, not one's head. The brain is useful in making certain decisions, but not where love's concerned. No. It's not needed for that. And you,” she said, focusing her gaze on Daisy, “are a child with a strong and true heart. You always have been . . . but of course you're still young and life's a muddle when you're young. I remember that . . . and so easy to make mistakes, so easy to
not
know and walk away . . . thinking
it will remain and still be there for you when you unravel the muddle.”

The only muddle to Daisy was what Noonie was speaking about. Then she said: “You see, I was once in love, terribly in love, but I didn't realize—had nothing to compare it to.”

“Grandpa?”

Noonie shook her head. “No, not
him
.”

“Who, then?”

“Oh, well, that's a long story. One best kept for another day. But I can tell you that he was—remains—the love of my life.”

“You've never mentioned him—any of this—before.”

Noonie raised a finger to her lips. “I couldn't—can't. And it's a long time ago . . . a lifetime ago. But I still think of him . . . Samuel,” she said, her voice filled with nostalgia and longing. “He married, eventually, and had a family. His daughter wrote to me last year, after he passed away. He had talked to her about me, you see. At the end, he'd talked about me.” She looked at Daisy. “Love never leaves us. It stays right here,” she said, placing a hand to her chest. “And then, one day, the mist rises, everything falls into place, and it's so easy to see, to understand, and one wishes one could run back through the years, back to that love.”

Stephen reappeared, clutching two glasses. He handed one to Noonie, the other to Daisy. Noonie looked up at him, her eyes twinkling. “Have you ever been in love, Stephen?” she asked.

Howard and Mabel stood by the lily pond where the stars glistened on the flat water and two stone lanterns burned.

“As you know, I've never been very good at expressing myself, not about emotions, and . . . not when it matters,” Howard said. Then he reached into his inside pocket and handed Mabel a small leather-bound book.

Mabel stared at it for a second or two, then she moved nearer to one of the lanterns. She opened the book, slowly turned a few of its pages, and looked back at her husband. “But it's filled with your writing . . . you've written all of this,” she said, confused.

“Yes, I wrote it while you were gone . . . I wanted to record everything—everything about you, and me and our lives . . . and how I felt, how I feel. I suppose, it was—is—some sort of confessional diatribe, but it was cathartic and helped me a great deal. And I wanted you to know—want you to know that . . .” He faltered. “That I've never stopped loving you, and that you are everything—everything to me.”

Mabel wasn't sure what to say. It was such a strange present, and not at all what she had been expecting.

“So no jewels?”

“No. No jewels.”

“And no speech?”

Howard shook his head. “Just some words from my heart.”

Mabel turned another page. She saw the name—a title at the top of the page—and she smiled. It was the first time she could recall having seen it in Howard's hand, but she knew now that her time away had allowed her husband not only time to reflect, but also time to grieve. The day after her return home, she had gone to the churchyard to find Theo's grave blanketed in white blooms, and the air suffused in the same heavenly fragrance as the rose garden.