The Snow Globe (16 page)

“I need to talk to you,” he said, and then gestured to a chair by the unlit fire.

She sat down in the old armchair, one she vaguely recognized from a time before. “Is it about Mrs. Vincent?” she asked, glancing about the room. “Because if it is, I'm not sure I want to hear.”

“No, it's not about Mrs. Vincent,” Stephen replied.

He moved over to her, sat down on the rug at her feet, crossed his legs and looked up at her.

She watched his eyes move down her body to her legs, her feet, felt his touch again, tracing the front of her stocking, her ankle, and then the warmth of his hand encircling it.

“Not about Mrs. Vincent . . . ,” she said.

He raised his eyes to hers. “No, it's about you . . . you and me.”

“You and me,” she repeated.

He smiled. She felt his grip on her ankle tighten.

“I love you, Daisy. I've loved you for as long as I can remember, and I know I'll love you till the day I die.”

At first, Daisy thought she might be dreaming, and she pinched the flesh on the back of her hand, once, twice, three times . . . She wasn't dreaming. And she was pleased she was sitting down, because she was trembling, shaking and shivering—and not from any coldness. She wanted to say, “I love you . . . I love you, too.” But the words wouldn't come.

“And I want you to come with me . . . to New Zealand,” Stephen was saying now, and she realized he'd been talking for some time. “I know it's the other side of the world,” he went on, “but just imagine it, imagine the possibilities . . .”

Daisy stared back at him: the tousled thick hair and dark eyes, the curve of his beautiful mouth and long jaw. She loved him, how—in what way—she still wasn't sure, but she couldn't go with him to New Zealand. How could she? Her father would go mad. Literally. It would kill him. She pictured herself high up on the deck of a ship, waving down to her parents and Iris on a quayside through a blizzard of streamers: her mother sobbing, Iris blowing kisses and Howard waving his fist. Then she took herself out of the equation and placed Stephen on the deck, waving down to her as the ship sounded its horn and moved slowly away . . .

And as her silence continued, as they sat staring at each other, his smile faded. He tilted his head to one side, breathed in deeply, then looked away and shut his eyes.

“I had to tell you,” he said. “And I'm afraid it required some Dutch courage.”

“But did you not realize?” Mabel demanded. “Did you not think?”

“No. I'm sorry, I just lost track of the time.”

“Really, Daisy, how
can
you forget the time—and then stand about the yard in the freezing cold—for almost an hour . . .” Mabel reached out and grabbed hold of Daisy's hands. “But your hands are warm.”

“Well, I wasn't out there the
whole
time. I moved about, kept coming inside,” Daisy went on, aware of both Iris's and Lily's scrutiny. “I just felt sick”—she shrugged—“and thought it best to keep out of the way.”

“You'll have pneumonia next, my girl,” said Noonie, unusually stern faced. “I hope you're wearing a vest.”

Mabel glanced at the ormolu clock on the mantelpiece. She raised a hand to her head. Almost nine o'clock. They had never eaten this late before, certainly not on Christmas Eve. Now
all
of
the men were missing. And it was entirely Howard's fault, she thought. Such an overreaction to Daisy's absence, and no doubt brought on by guilt, she mused, heading back to the kitchen.

It was shortly after half past nine by the time everyone—or almost everyone, because Miles had failed to reappear—had been rounded up and herded into the dining room by an unusually shrill-sounding Mabel. The meal, she knew, had quite literally gone to pot, and Mrs. Jessop, who normally emerged from the kitchen on Christmas Eve to receive the family's thanks, refused to come through to the dining room.

And who could blame her?
Mabel thought. The hors d'oeuvres were as shriveled as Howard's expression; the roast beef had dried out and was cold; and the Yorkshire puddings—which Mrs. Jessop prided herself on—were like old plaster, or so Noonie commented, somewhat gleefully.

The other result of the long delay to dinner was that everyone had had far too much champagne. For Blundy had taken it upon himself to go round and round the drawing room with the linen-wrapped bottle, topping up the ladies' glasses as though it were a drinking competition at the Olympics, Mabel thought now, woozily. She had tried to catch his eye, tried so many times to offer him a sign, saying,
No more, please. Thank you!
And it wasn't
the young
Mabel was concerned about; it was her mother, who, more loquacious than ever, had found it difficult to maneuver herself through each doorway: a problem, Mabel realized, if one is walking sideways.

Now her mother found every utterance hilarious and was
still
clutching a glass. Mabel tried to catch Howard's eye, tried to signal to him, nodding in the direction of Noonie. But Howard simply
stared blankly back at her. And Daisy, the culprit and cause of the delay, appeared unusually subdued and pensive. Mabel heard Iris say, “Penny for your thoughts?” and saw Daisy smile back at Iris and shake her head.

Later, as Howard and Dosia helped Noonie up the stairs, Miles finally appeared in the hallway.

“Well . . . you see, I knew Daisy was back,” he began, sheepish under Lily's scrutiny, “because I bumped into Stephen Jessop . . . and we somehow ended up at the Coach and Horses.”

“Stephen?”
Daisy repeated.

“Yes, Stephen,” said Miles, nodding once too often for Mabel's liking. “And as the feller's going off to New Zealand . . .”

“Who's going to New Zealand?” asked Howard, descending the stairs.

“New Zealand?” repeated Mabel.

“Who's going to New Zealand?” said Howard again.

“I've always rather fancied going to New Zealand,” said Dosia.

But Miles was now whispering to Lily, who stood with her arms folded, her head turned away.

“Right. Well, I rather think Miles should have something to eat,” said Mabel. “I presume you haven't dined, Miles?”

He shook his head. “I'm terribly sorry about all of this, Mabel.”

Howard turned toward the drawing room, shaking his head, muttering to himself about no one telling him anything anymore, and Mabel led her son-in-law off toward the kitchen, reminding herself wearily, silently, that the provision of meals was one of the primary roles of a mother, even a mother-in-law.

In the drawing room, Iris played Paul Whiteman on the
gramophone, and she and Margot Vincent seemed like new best friends, Daisy thought as she sat down. The two women sat together beneath the oriel window, smiling at each other, moving their heads and hands in some private blissful rhapsody to Irving Berlin's “What'll I Do.” Lily had disappeared upstairs to her room, sulking about Miles, and Dosia had gone to talk with her.

After so much disruption, the struggle to get everyone together, Mabel had insisted that the men take their port in the drawing room. They sat at the far end of the room in a smoky huddle round the card table with their glasses and cigars. Daisy sat with her back to them, their cigar smoke, like the music, drifting over her as she thought of Stephen's words, which were from time to time—whenever the music quieted and ebbed away—interrupted by politics.

“Self-government!” her father bellowed. “Mr. Baldwin should pay heed to Winston,” he added loudly, not anticipating a cessation in the loud crackle of Mr. Whiteman's orchestra.

“I'm afraid your empire has had its day, old chap,” said Reggie, and Daisy detected the trace of a smile in his voice. “You simply can't halt progress—nor should we . . .”

When Dosia reappeared, she sat down next to Daisy on the sofa. “Everything all right with you?” she asked, patting Daisy's hand.

Daisy smiled and nodded. Of anyone, of everyone, she'd have liked to talk to Dosia, to tell her what had happened with Stephen and ask her advice. But it was impossible to do so then and there, and she'd have had to shout it all out above the din anyway, which would certainly not be the thing to do.

The music picked up again, and over it, through it, muddled in
with love and New Zealand, was Howard: “Astounded! . . . willful destruction . . . communism . . . end of us.” Someone laughed: Reggie, Daisy thought. And she heard Ben saying something about people predicting the empire's end for as long as he could remember but he couldn't see it happening in his lifetime, and Reggie used the word
certain
and said whether any of them liked it or not
it
would happen. Then Iris and Margot began to sing: “Blue days, all of them gone, nothing but blues skies from now on . . .”

At the other side of the house, a tight-lipped Mrs. Jessop slammed a Crown Derby plate down on the pine table.

“Just a few slices, please,” said Mabel, meekly.

The large knife in Mrs. Jessop's hand seemed to move through the air toward the lump of cold meat in a decidedly haphazard fashion, to Mabel's mind—producing terror. Miles looked on vacuously from the table.

“We're all frightfully sorry about this, Mrs. Jessop,” Mabel said. “I know it's terribly late to be . . . And after dinner was . . .”

Mrs. Jessop stopped and turned to the clock on the wall, knife in hand. She said nothing, simply stood staring at it for a few seconds, then turned and began slicing the meat.

“Well, if everything's quite under control . . . ,” Mabel said, without finishing the sentence and without waiting for any answer, and she left the kitchen.

She walked back along the passageway and sat down on the bench in the shadows by the unlit tree. She could hear Margot singing, “Blue days, all of them gone, nothing but blue skies from
now on . . .” Sadness swept through Mabel. She felt her head begin to shake, felt a tear escape and roll down her cheek.

It was a while later when Daisy heard the men emerge from the billiard room and Ben ask her father if all the women
had retired and Howard say, “Well, yes, of course,” and quite sharply, as though it were an impertinence to be asked such a question. Now the house was unusually silent, the room empty but for the two of them, and she, locked in a trance, a sort of stupor, was lost in Stephen's words.

Stephen Jessop loved her. He loved her. The universe had taken something away—her romantic, idealized notion of her father—and then given something back. Unexpectedly, she had crossed a threshold, she thought, grappling with reason for a moment: She had left her childhood and moved to a new plane, which required a new understanding. One in which from the ashes of disappointment rose hope, freedom, new vistas and the possibility of independence. To run away with Stephen, to travel to the other side of the world with him, was surely the stuff of romantic fiction. And yet it was real. It was possible. And before this day she had not known. Because Stephen's love was different from her mother's, father's and siblings', and different, too, from the measured affection Ben Gifford called
love
.

This love knew no boundaries or borders; this love planned and moved forward, crossed oceans and went back in time. This love remembered. This love—too intimate to be affection—was as luminescent as the embers glowing in front of her and as unfathomable as the shapes within the dimly lit room.

When, eventually, Valentine spoke, his voice was soft and mellow, more than a whisper but not quite whole. He said, “This is my favorite time of day.” It was not a question, invited no reply. And so they continued their silence for a little while longer, until he rose to his feet, walked over and offered Daisy a cigarette. He sat down, nearer to her now, and staring upward he said, “You know, I don't blame you for disliking my mother or me.”

She felt newly magnanimous, cocooned in love. “I don't dislike you—or your mother,” she said.

“But I wouldn't blame you—if you did.”

“It's . . . a difficult situation, but part of life, I suppose. And you and I are innocent, not party to . . .” She couldn't think of the words at that moment and left the sentence.

“I understand you and Benedict Gifford are sort of engaged,” he said after a while.

Daisy smiled again. “No, we're not sort of engaged . . .
or
engaged.”

There were footsteps in the hallway and Blundy appeared in the doorway. “Ah, I do apologize. I thought everyone had retired for the night, miss.”

“Not quite, not yet, Mr. Blundell,” Daisy replied.

The man nodded and closed the door.

“You're quite different from other girls of your class.”

“I'm not entirely sure what you mean by
my
class
. My father's in trade—as his father was before him. We're hardly aristocracy. We're paint makers, traders who've done well; that's all. And isn't England filled with traders and market-stall holders?”

Val didn't look at her, but he smiled. And the
not
looking and the smile intrigued her.

“What about you? I know nothing . . . other than you write . . . and that your mother is an actress and happens to be my father's mistress.”

She saw him wince, then close his eyes. “I'm sorry,” she said, and then she rose to her feet and walked over to the table, where the snow globe sat next to the large glass-domed taxidermy diorama.