Wish Upon a Star (31 page)

In this mood, she wandered through the palace and found the gardens behind. The maze, the formal knot garden, the hothouse vines, and the indoor tennis court were impressive but, as Tina might say, ‘A nice place to visit, but you wouldn’t want to live there.’ Just thinking of the responsibility gave Claire the willies. How many servants did Henry employ? How many gardeners? How many cooks?

The sun came out and she looked across the wide park to the river. The gray Thames sparkled in the light and she thought with pleasure of her boat ride to come. She made her way to the gate and asked directions. She found the dock easily and a boat was just departing.

Since the sunshine was intermittent, Claire turned up her collar and tucked in her scarf before making her way to the upper deck. The views were lovely, and it was worth the chill to get to see the green banks make way for the houses and then for the larger buildings of the outer city and then for London itself.

She felt an exhilarated sense of freedom and it was only when they passed the Houses of Parliament and Claire saw the terrace where she had had tea with Michael and his friend that she felt a stab of loss. For a moment the low sky seemed to recede and Claire, alone on the top of the vessel, felt as if she might be sucked up into the air, past the wheeling gulls and terns and right off the planet. Once again the thought that she was completely free had turned with frightening speed into the realization that she was completely alone. Here in this vast space there was no place for her. Shaky, Claire made her way into the cabin and was grateful when the boat docked and she could be surrounded by people again.

On Friday morning Claire realized she had been in London for just over two weeks. She had run into the lurking Mrs. Watson and had to tell her she was extending her stay. It was humiliating, but her growing pleasure in the city made it tolerable. And perhaps something would turn up soon.

She had finished
Hons and Rebels
and had delighted in it. She hadn’t seen Toby for a week and wanted to go back, discuss the book and buy another. The three that she had sitting beside her bed made her crave more worn, well-read volumes with the delicious smell of old paper and London dust. Perhaps she could create her own library. She definitely wanted to read another Mitford book and perhaps a biography about the mad family.

Toby’s bookstore drew her like a magnet. It wasn’t just Toby, although she found him handsome, charming, and amusing. It was also her need to be recognized, to be welcomed and to be snug, the way she felt in the back of the bookstore in the big, enveloping chair—never mind the books. Despite the advice from Abigail, she didn’t want to throw herself at Toby or make herself a nuisance. Still, if she bought books she had a legitimate reason for being there. At least that was what she reminded herself as she walked to his shop.

When she reached the store she steeled herself to go in, and she was rewarded when she did. ‘Hello,’ Toby sang out a second time when he actually saw that it was she who had come in. ‘Good to see you. Or anyone actually.’ He gave himself a little shake, his fine hair swayed and then settled into place. ‘If I sit here too long with nothing to do I start doubting I can make a go of it.’

‘Haven’t you already?’

‘Hardly.’ He looked around. ‘But if I think too much about it I get the heebie-jeebies. A visit from you will drive them away.’

Claire felt herself blush with pleasure. She was afraid to take a seat in the easy chair until she was invited but Toby motioned her toward it. ‘I love the book,’ she said as if that justified her seat. ‘I thought I might try a biography of Nancy or the family.’

‘Oh, not Nancy. Far too sad. Loved one inappropriate man after the other—but haven’t we all?’ Claire nodded. ‘There’s a good book about the whole lot of them,’ Toby told her. ‘And then Diana Mosley wrote a strange little memoir. Oh, strike that. But you might want Nancy’s letters. She wrote a lot to Waugh and they’re brittle but awfully funny. Actually,
The Pursuit of Love
might be best. It’s a novel, you know. But shows her family at their absolute maddest. I think I have a couple of copies.’

He wandered off down an aisle. ‘At the very least,’ he said, raising his voice so she could hear him, ‘it will show you a bit of how jolly England was when we had a ruling class.’ He returned with a pretty leather book bound in blue. ‘That is, of course, if you were a member of the ruling class. Otherwise, a bit grim I’m afraid. Still, nothing about Nancy was much in touch with reality. Just enjoy it.’

Claire reached for her purse. The idea of putting this pretty little book with her others delighted her. Why had she been satisfied with nothing but paperbacks and library editions in New York? The book was marked five pounds and when Toby began to insist he could give it to her for less, she insisted he take the five-pound note she pushed at him. ‘I’m paying you not just to be my bookseller but my literary advisor,’ she said.

He smiled. ‘Perhaps I could make more money at that.’ He tucked the note into his pocket. ‘But aside from your custom, for which I am very grateful, I have news and I didn’t know where to get in touch with you.

‘I may have found you somewhere to live,’ Toby continued. ‘My friend, Imogen, has a little place in South Ken. Anyway, she’s looking for a few extra quid—Im is spendy. Makes almost nothing as an editor of just the worst kind of stuff. How to Decorate Your Uterine Wall in Ten Days. Clay Pots Made Simple. Absolutely lives in Harvey Nicks. Anyway, I asked if she knew anyone who might share their place and she offered her box room.’

‘What’s a box room?’ Claire asked, not that she cared. South Kensington was a wonderful area. The knitting shop was there. Her spirits fell; it would probably be far too expensive.

‘What’s a box room? What does it sound like? It’s a place where you store boxes, or luggage, or put the baby if you’re a breeder. Anyway, it’s not quite a bedroom but it does have a window and Im says that—well, I’ll let you speak to her.’ He lifted the phone beside his elbow and punched in a number. Then he paused and put the phone down. ‘She’s actually a bit of a…climber,’ he said in an undertone. ‘But after all it’s the national sport. Rather like a dog enthusiast—collects people for their pedigree. Always thought Crufts was just the middle class yearning to prove their dogs were aristocrats. But there you have it. Fun to watch. Has a boyfriend. Nice enough chap. Can’t think why she’s marrying him except because of his connections. Don’t know what she’ll think of you. Either we make you a cousin to the Hilton twins or an impoverished Vanderbilt.’

If it were a small room perhaps it would be cheaper, but…‘Do I have to lie?’

Toby smiled. ‘Well, of course the Bilsop family
is
one of the oldest in America.’ He made a little moue and lifted his eyebrows.

‘Well, perhaps they are actually. My father was always going on about them but I’m not sure how much was true and how much was wishful thinking.’

Toby smiled brightly. ‘Let’s give him the benefit of the doubt. Assume Best in Show at Crufts.’ He picked up the phone again and punched in the number.

There was a brief silence while someone spoke to Toby. ‘Well, never mind all that,’ he said. ‘I have that lovely girl here, the one I told you about. Very quiet and neat. Perfect for a box room. But an old family. Given a land grant by George III and popped over to our colonies donkey’s years ago.’ He winked at Claire who had to smile. ‘Anyway, she’s just peachy.’ Claire held her breath while Imogen must have said something. ‘Oh, quite,’ Toby told her. ‘Would you like to speak with her?’

Apparently Imogen did, because Toby handed the phone over to Claire.

‘Hello. I’m Claire Bilsop,’ she said.

‘I’m Imogen Faulkner. Toby says we should meet. But I don’t want you to get your hopes up. The spare room is quite small and it’s a bit of a tip, really. I don’t know if it would do for you.’

‘Oh, I’m sure it would,’ Claire said.

‘When would you like to come over?’

Claire thought of Mrs. Patel. She really couldn’t be late, and it was unlikely that Imogen would want to see her after ten. ‘Could you meet me tomorrow morning?’ she asked. ‘I work in the evenings.’

‘Morning? If it’s after ten? Could you do later?’

‘Sure. Eleven?’

‘Brilliant,’ Imogen said. ‘By the way, it would be so much more convenient if you weren’t around between six-ish and midnight.’ Imogen lowered her voice. ‘It’s when I do my entertaining: I’m engaged to be married,’ she giggled. ‘Toby has my address and all of that. And tell him I don’t want any of his bloody books. He inherited them, I didn’t. He ought to keep them to himself.’

‘I’ll tell him,’ Claire promised. ‘Tomorrow, then, at eleven.’

‘Brilliant,’ Imogen said once more and hung up.

The next morning Claire took the underground to South Kensington station and walked from there to the address she had marked on her map. Kensington was a very different world from Camden. Here in Kensington, none of the terraces seemed to be broken by the unattractive modern buildings. Each row of houses curved and smiled as evenly as actors’ teeth, without a gap or an ugly modern bridge anywhere.

Claire had arrived early, Mrs. Patel having given her the day off. ‘Not that you’ll get paid,’ she had cautioned. Claire smiled, remembering her fierce expression. She was beginning to realize that Mrs. Patel was a softy, trying to keep her better nature under wraps as her sari protectively covered her child-to-be. Claire was beginning to think she had made a true friend.

All around her the houses were bedecked with thriving window boxes and pots of topiary. Wrought-iron fences separated the immaculate sidewalk from the equally immaculate front gardens. Claire couldn’t think of a section of New York that was this charming. Perhaps they existed, but Claire had never been there.

She turned a corner and was on Imogen’s street. It was only ten-thirty so she walked past number nineteen—to her delight a cream painted three-storey house with a pretty bow window—and continued to look around the neighborhood.

Just two blocks away there were a pub, a convenience store and one of the ubiquitous estate agent’s shops. Claire couldn’t believe how many real-estate offices there were. People must buy and sell their homes every week to keep so many agents in business. She spent a few minutes looking at the tempting pictures of interiors and marveling over the forbidding prices. She ducked into the Crown and Slipper and it seemed, though very quiet at that time of day, inviting enough. There didn’t seem to be a breakfast place nearby but perhaps, if Imogen accepted her as a flatmate, she could cook her own. Even if she couldn’t, she wouldn’t care as long as she could take baths freely. She walked back to number nineteen, walked up the stairs to the front door and pressed the button over ‘Faulkner’.

When she was buzzed in she found herself in an elegant vestibule with a black and white marble floor, a gilded mirror on the wall and two doors before her. She hadn’t a clue which one to knock on and stood for a moment in the pretty little space. Both doors were painted with a faux Turkish tile design. She had stepped into
The Arabian Nights
, but didn’t know which entrance she should address with ‘Open sesame.’ And if those weren’t the magic words, she hoped she could find the ones that would make this Imogen take her in. She couldn’t believe that she might be lucky enough to live in such an elegant neighborhood in such an adorable building. She paused and took a deep breath, then superstitiously crossed her fingers and knocked on the door on her right.

She had barely lowered her hand when the door was thrown open and Imogen—she guessed it was Imogen—stood revealed before her. Revealed was the right word because Imogen was in pantyhose and make-up but very little else.

‘Hello,’ she said in the same intonation that Toby used. The word dipped in the front and lifted at the end the way a sailboat moved through a swell.

Claire, always modest, felt her face suffuse with color, but tried to keep her eyes only on Imogen’s round face and wide round blue eyes. Her hair was a honey-blond halo, and her skin was the most perfect, poreless surface that Claire had ever seen. ‘You must be Claire,’ Imogen said. ‘Come on up. I hope you don’t mind that I’m just in my smalls.’ Claire shook her head but Imogen had already turned, revealing the back of her ‘knickers’ and the stairway in front of them. She galloped up two flights of stairs and Claire followed, wondering if panties were knickers and smalls and a dozen other words in this country.

But as she reached the top of the stairs she had to stop to take a breath. The flat opened before her, a white, sunlit space with big windows in the front as well as a skylight overhead. There was a large sofa facing a small fireplace, a lot of gray wall-to-wall carpet and not much else except piles of papers on the floor, on the counters and on the end tables. ‘Would you like a drink?’ Imogen asked. ‘Coffee? Sherry? I’m having a sherry.’

Claire nodded and then remembered Imogen still had her back to her. ‘Sherry would be nice,’ she said and was relieved when Imogen returned not only with the sherries but also wrapped in a cotton robe. She couldn’t imagine being interviewed by a woman in her underwear.

‘Sit down,’ Imogen invited Claire as she moved a stack of papers from a chair. ‘I’m an editor at Sofer & Laughton. Rather fun, really, but lots of paperwork I’m afraid.’ Claire sat at the other end of the sofa. ‘God, I haven’t seen Toby in months. Is he keeping well?’ Claire wasn’t sure if that was an inquiry as to Toby’s health or his aging process, but she nodded. ‘We were at university together. Good boy is our Toby. How do you know him?’

It was a natural enough question, but Claire hadn’t prepared for it. If she told the truth would she seem a transient, undependable and unknown? If she lied, what could she possibly invent and how would she ask Toby to cover for her? ‘From the bookstore,’ she told Imogen.

‘Oh, are you in the book trade? I always think it was awfully lucky that Toby’s uncle died. Great Warwickshire family, but penniless, of course. The business suits him right down to the ground, though it’s hardly a business, is it? He’d be hopeless in the City. We always knew that, couldn’t imagine what he’d do, and then Sir Frederick conveniently died and there you have it. Not that Toby inherited the title, you understand. Just the shop and the flat. Can’t think what he lives on, but he manages, doesn’t he? Maybe good Uncle Frederick left him some money as well.’