Fragile Blossoms (16 page)

It was John Sargent’s painting
Girl Eating Strawberries
that did it for Daniel. He saw the first sketch. ‘Who is she?’ he’d asked John.

‘Never you mind.’

‘I do mind. I mind very much and you know me, Johnny, when I put my mind to a task it has to go my way.’

‘And what do you want from this?’

‘Her! That girl!’

‘She’s not a girl. She’s a married woman.’

‘Ah hell, do you say so?’

‘I do. Go away, young fellow, and try your luck elsewhere.’

Daniel did go away. On behalf of the Philadelphia
Bulletin
he went to China reporting on rebellion in Taiping. He left an open cheque with JSS and a plea that, married or not, he’ll have her picture on his wall. Daniel and John have been friends for years, Callie and Mary Newbold Singer both ardent globe-trotters. They formed a friendship in the late 60’s. It was a difficult time for both, John’s sister Mary ill and Callie sick of paying off another of Sam’s amours. John had a house in Montparnasse which is where Daniel saw him flying a kite; ‘Hey, young fellow!’ he’d called. ‘Grab hold! See if you can catch the wind.’

Though less than ten years his junior Daniel will always be young fellow to John Sargent, in many ways it is true, John always so focussed and Daniel racketing around. Mother and father separated Daniel rarely went back to Philadelphia, education more the product of the museums and churches in Florence and Paris and Rome than a schoolroom. But a man can’t eat Lotus blossoms forever. If he wanted to be taken seriously as a writer he needed collegiate backing and so went back to Philly to Lehigh University where Uncle Lemuel is professor. From there he moved to Johns Hopkins University and then to the
Inquirer
, which didn’t last long, the editor saying Daniel ‘was a crazy man looking to die young.’ A spot with the
Bulletin
followed by the
New York Herald
plus a successful book on the rise of the American portraitist, John Singer Sargent, and a second book on the Rights of Black American Citizens. The first book brought closer ties with John, the second death threats from the Klu Klux Klan.

For a while then he was freelance, writing of wars and the making of wars. Then Pa died and Callie decided to renew her love-hate relationship with a house, which in turn, like sunlit on stepping stones across a lake, led to the
Girl Eating Strawberries
. When he learned Julianna was a widow he paid a visit to the Tite Street Studio. ‘What do you mean you want to paint her?’ John hated the idea. ‘You can’t paint.’

‘I know but how else are we to meet?’

‘You do what every decent guy does in these circumstances you wait.’

‘Sure but if while I’m waiting another guy with a better address and a responsible history comes along then it’s you I’m gonna blame.’

At the time that was said tongue in cheek but then he heard she was to be at the Carrington’s and contrived an invite. John took some persuading. ‘This is a low for a man like you, Daniel. Can’t you just come out with it?

‘Come out with what? ‘Oh, how di-do, Mrs Dryden, sorry for your loss, and even more sorry that my crazy mother, who I adore but have no control over, is every night nipping over your wall to steal your plants. I beg you, beautiful Julianna do not call the cops! Mother can’t help herself.’’

John surrendered to an introduction and the
Strawberry Girl
portrait. ‘Take it! I’ll get no peace until you do. As for Russell Square I’ll introduce you as a friend
wanting
to paint Mrs Dryden. That much at least is true. I don’t like subterfuge but neither do I like the way Freddie sees Julianna as an answer to his problems. She is a gentle person, her father a vicar and her late husband a Cambridge Don. I do like Evie Carrington and admire her as an artist but as with her brother she has problems. Pills and potions and late night dashes for doctors, they both tilt at all manner of windmills.’

Sam Masson once asked Daniel what he wanted from life. ‘It’s time you settled down,’ he said. ‘Marriage gives a man roots.’ This he said smiling and chomping a cigar, no doubt on his way to meet some woman. That he survived as long as he did is entirely due to mother’s purse being ever open to settle a bill. Daniel remembers asking Dulce why father needed so many women.

‘Why are you thinking of going that way?’

‘No, ma’m, I am not.’

‘I hope not. It would break your Mammy’s heart.’

‘I’m not. I’ll never go that way! I just wanted to know.’

Dulce had blown out her lips. ‘It’s about quantity. Lots of gals make little guys feel like big guys. Big guys are big and only need one gal to tell ‘em so.’

Thinking of little guys Julianna has a problem at night with rowdies. Daniel will look into it though it will be a tough rowdy that gets by her dog. They came down the rise, Julianna light on his arm and her perfume in his nostrils.

The dog was at the door every hair quivering.

‘Easy fellow,’ Daniel dropped down onto his knees ‘I’m not the enemy.’

Julianna stroked the dog’s ears. ‘This is Kaiser.’

‘And a good dog at that! He reminds me of Watson.’

‘What a wonderful name. Is he a Conan Doyle character?’

‘I’d love to say yes but such stories then were only thoughts in Doyle’s mind. Having said that when it came to detecting trouble my dear old boy was second to none. And brave? You wouldn’t believe it.’

‘I would,’ she said then her eyes soft. ‘My father said a dog takes after his master. You are a brave man. Watson would have been the same.’

Daniel wanted to say wars don’t make men brave but he liked her eyes and her hand so white against the dog’s rough pelt. He had a mind one day to feel that hand against his lips so took the compliment and went home to bed.

Julia sat at the piano thinking of what had been said about being too open with friendships. Currying favour for favour’s sake doesn’t seem right but perhaps she does need to be discreet. As Freddie said there’s only so much darkness a soul can deflect before the glass cracks. Today he was a child throwing a tantrum. Julia would’ve gone after him. ‘Leave him,’ Daniel had said. ‘Men like Freddie have another Freddie inside their head. No matter what anyone says or does that other Freddie only hears the shattering of dreams.’

Weary Julia stood at the bedroom window. A fog rolling off the Wash and the back parlour alight this little cottage must shine through the mist like a faded jewel. A fierce love and need to protect the cottage rose up in her. Callie Masson would have it pulled down. Julia is sorry for Callie but wary. Hatred of the past must stay on the other side of the wall. It must not be allowed to cross over. Luke and his father secured the bricks and mortar. Now Julia must do the same for the memory of those that once lived here.

‘Oh!’ She moved back from the window. Someone has come out onto the Greenfield terrace and is bending over the telescope!

It was Callie!

Julia shuddered. In that moment she knew why Justine Newman built the wall. It wasn’t to keep out flesh and blood. It was to deny this, the brooding anger of a girl who although decades have passed is again crouched at the spy-glass, a ghost spying on ghosts.

Matty stamped his foot again. ‘Not going!’

‘What a shame!’ said Julia, ‘and here’s me filling the basket with nice things to eat. A lovely day, the sun shining, I did think you might take your bucket and spade and dig for bait.’

A pause Matty’s lip trembling and then: ‘Don’t want to!’

‘Ah well it seems Mr Masson and I must have our lovely day without you.’

A picnic on the Fens? Most children would jump at the opportunity. Julia is losing patience. ‘You’re going, Matthew Dryden, and that’s all there is to it. I am in the garden this morning. You have your music lessons and when Mr Masson calls we’ll go together.’

‘I won’t!’ Matty threw himself down on the floor. ‘I really won’t!’

Julia closed the basket lid and walked away. She had to otherwise she’d smack him. Five o clock he climbed into her bed claiming a pain. When asked where he pointed to his chest. Matty’s not good at fibbing. He wriggles when attempting it. ‘Is the pain here?’ she moved her hand all over and every spot a wriggle. The morning progresses and still he complains saying Mister Punch bit him. ‘I thought Mr Punch was gone,’ said Julia. ‘I thought the Seed Lady’s crocodile ate him up. Is that not the case?’ At that Matty was silent, not a wriggle in sight, to fib about the Seed Lady unthinkable.

Julia briefly considered making excuses to Daniel and then thought no, Matty rules her life as it is, a break from the tea-shop would be welcome. But what brought the sulks about? Last night he went to bed looking forward to the picnic. The fox tail didn’t help. Yesterday a package addressed to Maggie was left at the back door. When opened out fell the bloodied stump of a fox’s brush sent by the Nelson boot boy. Matty was unhappy about that but not enough to sulk so. ‘What is it,’ she asked? ‘Why do you behave so?’ He didn’t answer, only dragged away upstairs his hand through Kaiser’s collar.

Daniel is to collect them at three Julia, meanwhile, lifts hyacinth bulbs. She loves hyacinth, amiable plant, a little rest and darkness and it will bloom when all else is dead. Afterward she’ll cut the lavender. Most of yesterday was spent making lavender bags for guests when they come tomorrow, if they come.

She worked steadily for an hour. The sun shone it was a good day for a picnic. Ben Faulkner arrived, a cheery call across the green. What a difference regular work has made. No doubt he still drinks but that awful look of weariness is gone. Until Ben arrived Matty showed no real interest in the piano but as is often the case a stranger ignites a dormant fire. ‘He has talent, Mrs Dryden,’ says Ben. Today that talent is not in evidence the mice in
Hickory Dickory Dock
trudging up and down the clock with leaden feet.

Matty sits under the piano and wishes he could tell Mister Wolf of the Seed Lady. She came last night and sat by the bed. She often comes. They talk of animals, how her Papa had greyhounds and Arabian thoroughbred horses. Last night they talked of growing things. She spoke of trees and how in Ireland, in County Clare, when she was a little girl, there were trees called Sequoia which grow right up into the sky. Matty asked if the trees were higher than the giraffe Mumma and he saw last year.

‘Higher.’

‘Higher than Jack and the Beanstalk?’

‘Close enough, though luckily there are no big bad giants at the top, only the sky and the stars and a thousand bright miracles.’ Matty asked if she was a miracle. She said no he is. Matty asked if Papa was in heaven. The Lady said he was continuing. That was her word, continuing. Matty didn’t know what it meant. The Seed Lady whispered a secret in his ear about a new Papa. It was a good secret and almost filled the hole in his chest that came when Papa died. Matty woke and thought of the picnic and the man Daniel who lives on the Other Side of the Wall and likes Mumma. The Seed Lady said not worry all things will be as they should be, if it is Daniel’s fate to be with Mumma he will be but that if Matty wanted to protest he was free to do so.

Daniel is a little vexed. Midway through the afternoon, at the second throwing of a tin soldier into a stream and him having to retrieve it, his feet thick with mud, he began to wonder if being a bachelor was no bad thing.

‘I am most awfully sorry,’ Julianna is all red cheeks and apologies.

‘Don’t give it another thought,’ he said. ‘I was the same when I was his age.’

‘Were you really?’ She passed a towel to dry his feet. ‘I find that hard to believe. You seem too calm and collected to be any such way.’

‘Calm and collected?’ He grimaced. ‘Good grief! Is that good manners for dull and boring, Julianna?’

She laughed. ‘I don’t think so.’

‘Perhaps you are saying I have gravitas.’

‘Gravitas! That’s a word. Is gravitas is important to you?’

‘It’s important to any newsman.’

‘Why is that?’

‘Why?’ Daniel lowered himself once again over the side of the skiff. ‘I suppose because a newsman spends his working life trying to convince people to give him access to places he shouldn’t go to learn secrets they shouldn’t tell.’

All afternoon he strove to make the most of his time with Julianna but with little success. The boy sulked throughout, won’t do this, won’t do that, Daniel itched to put him over his knee and give him a beating. He hadn’t thought Matty difficult. Today he was a monster. Mutinous, brows heavy, any comment steered toward him, any little jest, was met with silence. By six, a glass of lemonade spilt on Daniel’s new straw boater, they’d all three had enough and steered back to land.

Talk about a struggle! If the child wanted to put a hex on the trip he couldn’t have done better. Daniel returned to Greenfields aware in Matthew Dryden he encountered his greatest rival for Julianna’s hand.

*

Mrs Mac was up early making pastry. ‘If it’s alright with you, madam, I thought a meat pie for lunch and lemon meringue to follow.’

Julia nodded. ‘You might save a portion of pie for Mr Faulkner. He’s coming today to help put up tables.’ Mrs Mac is taken with the tutor. He comes every Tuesday and every Tuesday she cooks extra. She also darns his socks and patches his sleeves. Seeing this helped Julia to make a decision. ‘Maud, there’s box of Doctor Passmore’s things in the closet. You might go through it with Ben in mind. There’s a jacket that might be useful or a pair of boots. Oh, and yet again we are expecting Lady Carrington and her brother to call.’

This will be the third time Evie suggested a visit. They never did make it from the Nelson. They sent a note saying they’d been called away, Freddie clearly upset about his portrait. Then there was a note suggesting another date that yet again they reneged. Today’s proposed visit came via Albert Roberts.

He tapped on the door. ‘A message for you, Mrs Dryden. Lady Carrington says she hopes to pop by later this afternoon. ‘

‘Thank you, Mr Roberts.’

Albert was all civility. ‘Not at all, ma’m.’ He donned his cap. ‘We’re pleased to be of service to all our patrons.’

Two-thirty and still no sign.

‘Do you think they’ll come today?’ said Mrs Mac.

‘I don’t know but in view of Saturday’s opening why not take this afternoon as a rest. It’s a lovely day. You could take Matty for a picnic and Ben could accompany you.’ Julia prefers Mrs Mac not to meet her former employer. Doubtless Evie would sail through any such meeting, Mrs Mac’s nerves, and Julia’s, less secure. Let’s hope their picnic goes better than the trip to the Fens.

Parting that day Julia had apologised. ‘I don’t know what got into him.’

‘He doesn’t want to share you,’ Daniel had said.

‘But he doesn’t share!’

‘Not yet but he knows a competitor when seen.’ He’d taken her hand and pressed it to his lips. ‘I wouldn’t want to share you either.’

That last part of the day was nice his lips were warm and his smile beguiling. In that moment Julia had realised how much she needed a man’s arms about her. The need must have shown because Daniel bent closer. ‘Don’t fret, Julianna. I’m a patient man. I can wait. In this I’m a Greville not a Masson. A couple of days ago we spoke of words and what they can do. One word from you and it will take more than a wall and troubled child to keep me away.’

Once again the Carringtons didn’t show. Julia waited into the early evening. Everything was ready, the rose-sprigged service down from the shelf and a sample of delicious pastries they plan to sell on Saturday.

So ill-mannered and such a waste of time! There’s much to do indoors and out. The passing of a garden to a gardener was Aunt’s wish. Julia uses what spare time she has to endorse that wish and can ill-afford to wait on the fickle fancy of another.

Maggie hovers at the door. ‘Don’t look like they’re coming, madam.’

Julia packed the cakes away the meat she divided between Ben and Maggie.

‘Nobody comes these days,’ said Maggie stuffing her mouth. ‘Not the Missis from the Nelson or that nice German doctor.’

‘Doctor Adelmann is a busy man.’

‘They’re all busy, madam. We don’t see Mr Luke now he’s building his house.’

‘Luke is building a house?’

‘Yes and it ain’t half big! I went to see it the other day. He was putting a new roof on. I asked if he’d be needin’ a maid. He told me to clear off.’

Julia wished she could do the same. ‘It’s time you were gone to see your boy friend. Be back before nine, Maggie, or I’ll lock the door.’

‘I’ll be back.’

‘You’d better. A repeat of the other night and you banging to be let in and you’ll be out permanently.’

It’s no good being sharp with Maggie. It’s not her fault the Carringtons chose to stay away anymore than it’s her fault Luke does the same. So he’s bought a house? Julia wonders if it is close by and whether she might look. It will be beautiful wherever it is. Look at the cottage! His magical talent is everywhere even to a door knocker. A miniature version of the three-headed Cerberus that guard the Wall the front door knocker repelled rather than invited. Then Luke took it. Now the brutes are tamed a twisted leather leash about the many necks. What was it Evie said of him, ‘beautiful and surprisingly resourceful.’ Julia agrees he is beautiful but wonders what is meant by resourceful.

*

Countdown to the Grand Opening! They chose Saturday to have Sunday to recover. Local housewives promised cakes, not too many obliged, but that doesn’t matter now Leah Fergusson is here. Leah arrived in the nick of time. A long-time friend of Mrs Mac she is calm and courteous, everything one would want in a maid. ‘I understand you knew Mrs McLaughlin in Dorset.’

‘I did, madam. She was nurse to the Blakely child.’

‘And your former employer died?’

‘Alas yes. I was with Mrs Ash a long time. I started as a second cook and stayed that way. I was happy there.’

‘I hope you’ll be happy with us.’

The household is rearranged and the staff sitting room given up so that all might have a room of their own. Maggie now sleeps in the high attic. She sulks but doesn’t lose by it Leah and Maud feeding sweeties to a spoilt child.

Wednesday started in dramatic fashion, seven am posts being hammered into the ground and workmen, telegraph engineers, swarming all over the land,.

‘You’ll be sharing a party-line with the Big House. Once linked, ma’m, I’ll knock and show you the ropes.’ Julia’s not keen on the telegraph posts but appreciates the telephone, though who she has to call is another thing.

Mid afternoon the seamstress arrived. Maud, Leah, and Dorothy, a girl from the village to help wait on tables, try on their uniforms. Black being too harsh for Maud’s sallow complexion Julia chose grey poplin dresses and white caps and aprons. Julia is to wear a similar dress but of silk and naturally no apron. Watching them parade suddenly the tea-shop is real. As yet no one dares ask what happens if it fails. If it does fail Julia has settled on a plan. The cottage will be put up for sale. She did ask Daniel if Callie was the secret would-be buyer. He seemed surprised that there was a would-be buyer.

‘It is a codicil to the original will.’

‘Saying what?’

‘It’s a bit of a mystery. Mr Simpkin showed me a copy the other day. ‘
The right of first refusal will be granted to the rightful stranger
,’ is what it says. The document is with Geddes the law firm in Kings Lynn.’

‘What does it mean?’

‘I have no idea. Apparently the situation is only germane if I wish to sell.’

‘I imagine Callie would offer a King’s Ransom for first refusal.’

‘Do you think that is the reasoning behind the codicil?’

‘I do. It’s clearly some kind of barrier.’

‘Would she return the cottage to the Estate?’

‘More likely raze it to the ground! It’s a forty year obsession, a lifetime. Such memories can’t be unburdened over night.’

‘Do you suppose Justine Newman guessed that might be the case?’

Daniel shrugged. ‘I don’t know what went on between those two but I’m willing to bet there was a lot more love at one time than ever there was hate.’

Callie must be going out for the evening. Her carriage pulled into the yard.

Julia went to meet her. ‘You look very elegant.’

‘I look what I am mutton dressed with diamonds.’

Julia gestured to the telegraph posts. ‘Is this you?’

‘No it is not. My son suggested I step into the twentieth century.’

‘And you’d rather not?’

‘Telephones have their uses but I don’t care for them. Ringing all hours you might as well pay a chap to bang a gong just as you’re dropping off to sleep.’ Callie walked through into the parlour. ‘You’re expecting visitors?’

‘I was.’

‘Anybody in particular?’

‘Evelyn Carrington.’

‘Oh you won’t see her today. She’ll be at the Crystal Palace Motor Show. Everybody’s there. It’s a whole week and first of its kind. My Crosby sitting out there with Dulce so patiently is very keen to go.’

‘And where are you off to looking so grand?’

‘I’m with friends at Holkham Hall.’

‘I hope you have fun.’

‘Unlikely.’ Callie gestured. ‘The tables look very inviting. I like the linen. I’m glad you’re not going for the bare table thing. That is for soda-fountains not elegant tea-shops. Are you expecting many on Saturday?’