The Snow Globe (19 page)

New Zealand. Would he ever get there? Not if he kept going back to the Coach and Horses, he wouldn't. Not with Tabitha Farley always finishing when he was and asking him to walk her home and putting his hand down the front of her blouse. Not with all that going on. And Daisy . . . Daisy Forbes?

“Elbows off the table, Stephen!”

He opened his eyes, sat up in his chair and tried to smile back at Hilda. Feeling more lugubrious than ever, he was, he thought, an idiot—a complete idiot—to even for a single beer-soaked minute entertain the thought that someone like Daisy would ever in a million years go with someone like him: a servant, a drunk and another one who couldn't keep his flies done up.

There was a choice of turkey or goose, roasted potatoes, endless vegetables and accompaniments, sauces and gravy, all followed by a flickering blue-flamed pudding, carried in by Mrs. Jessop—looking quite different in a navy blue jersey dress and red paper hat. Mabel served the plum pudding, handing the bowls down the table, and seconds later Daisy called out, “It's me! I have it!” She lifted the sixpence from the soggy mess in her bowl and held it up for everyone to see. A polite hush descended.

“Now, are you going to make a wish—or do you still not believe in them?” asked Margot, smiling.

But as Daisy closed her eyes she heard Margot whisper to Mabel, “You know, I always longed for a daughter . . . and now I'm to have one. For Valentine is engaged to be married, and his fiancée, Aurelia, is the sweetest, kindest creature that
ever
lived.”

Daisy opened her eyes.

“How wonderful,” said Mabel. She tilted her head toward Valentine. “Many congratulations to you, my dear.”

Val smiled. He glanced from Daisy to his mother, then back to Daisy.

“They haven't set a date, as it hasn't been officially announced yet, but we're thinking of late summer, perhaps September,” Margot went on. “I think it's the perfect month for a wedding.”

“I like June. We were married in June,” said Lily, turning and smiling at a contrite Miles.

“Mabel and Howard were married in September,” said Iris, staring over the table at Margot. “They celebrate twenty-five years of wedded bliss next year.”

Margot smiled. “Yes, I know. I was there . . . Seems like yesterday.”

“Oh, I say, is there to be a party?” asked Dosia, turning to her brother.

Howard smiled at Mabel. “I rather think there should be . . .”

Mabel said nothing.

“In the meantime,” Howard continued, “I believe a toast is in order . . .” But as he tried to rise to his feet, he grimaced with obvious pain and quickly sat back down. “Forgive me, please, for not standing . . . but a toast is a toast all the same. To Valentine and Aurelia.”

“To Valentine and Aurelia!”

Valentine forced a smile, said a quiet thank-you, then picked up his spoon and stared down at his pudding. And as Mabel and Margot went on discussing weddings, Daisy offered, “Aurelia's a very pretty name . . .”

Valentine didn't look at Daisy. He frowned slightly, tilted his head to one side, but said nothing.

Then Margot, overhearing Daisy's comment, said, “Isn't it just? And it
so
suits her. Some people are born to have a certain name, and she was born to be Aurelia. It means
golden
 . . . and she is,” she added, wide-eyed and smiling. “She's truly a golden girl!”

“She certainly is,” agreed Howard.

“You've met her?” asked Iris.

Howard stammered. “Well . . . er, yes, I believe so . . . think I may have done . . .”

“Surely you'd remember whether or not you had met Valentine's
golden girl
?” said Iris. “Anyone would remember meeting an Aurelia, I think.”

Howard stared at Mabel.

“Yes, I believe you did meet her, once,” said Margot. “It was when I played Judith Bliss at the Criterion.
Hay Fever
is such a marvelously funny play . . . Have you seen it, Mabel? Oh, but you must—it's one of my favorites, but then dear Noel is my absolute favorite playwright and such a
darling
man.”

At that moment Valentine pushed back his chair, turned to Mabel and said if she didn't mind he rather needed to take some air.

“Of course, my dear,” said Mabel.

Minutes later, as they all rose to their feet, Daisy saw him through the dining room window, walking away from the house across snow-covered lawns, his collar pulled up, his head down, his hand moving to and from his face as he smoked. It struck her then, at that moment, that he didn't seem altogether happy, and she assumed it was guilt—because of last night: kissing her when he was
in fact betrothed to another. She half thought of going after him, but what could she say? She had no experience of
engaged
men—of any men at all, come to that. But they all seemed rather confused and tortured to her.

It meant nothing,
she thought, watching the camel-hair coat disappear into the woodland.
My first kiss meant nothing, to either one of us.

After lunch, everyone sat about in the hallway inhaling eucalyptus and pine and damp dog as Howard reached down, read out tags and handed over the festooned packages. There were the usual bath salts and soap, mittens and handkerchiefs, calendars and books and new cloth- or leather-bound diaries marked
1927
. Daisy had already taken a look and rummaged. Had felt anything marked with the message “To Daisy.” She knew it was there, knew it was coming, but Howard left it until last.

“To our darling Dodo, Happy Christmas from Mummy and Daddy,” he said without looking at the tag and walking toward Daisy with the large wrapped box. He placed it at Daisy's feet, kissed her forehead. “Happy Christmas, darling.”

It was a Remington typewriter, the one she'd asked for, in a dark gray mottled leather case and with large round buttons no finger could miss. She turned to her mother: “Thank you . . . thank you so much.”

“You really should be thanking your father. I had no part in it.”

Daisy looked at her father, who remained a few feet in front of her, staring back at her and smiling. “Thank you, Howard,” she said. He could never again be
Daddy
.

“Yes, I see what you mean . . . ,” said Stephen, taking a cigarette from the proffered packet. “To be honest, I'm in a bit of a similar situation myself.”

The two of them were sitting in the armchairs on either side of the fire in the sitting room of Stephen's flat. They had bumped into each other out in the yard, where Stephen had been chopping a few more logs, to save his father doing it, and Valentine had been—well, loitering about, Stephen thought.

They had met many times before, and it was nice, Stephen thought now, to be able to return a bit of hospitality, because Val had always been good to him. Anytime he'd sat outside in the motor—reading the newspaper, waiting for his nibs—Val had emerged on the doorstep, invited him in, taken him to the basement kitchen and offered him a cuppa. Nice chap, he'd thought. Of course, they didn't have a lot in common—other than a mutual distrust of Benedict Gifford, who had always talked down to Stephen. But during the course of the preceding year he and Val had become friendly and had talked about this and that: the weather, the floods, the strike, cricket. They had never really talked much about girls, women, though Stephen had mentioned Daisy, how many times he wasn't altogether sure. But now that Val had shared something of his own intimate affairs, Stephen had felt it not unwrong and maybe even sympathetic to mention his own dilemma.

“Bit like you,” Stephen said, “in love with one, probably—most definitely—the wrong one, and stuck on a track with a bit of a fast one.”

“But you're not engaged to be married?” asked Val.

“No, thank God, I'm not. Not to her anyway, not to the fast one . . . but I wish I was to the other.”

Neither one of them used any names. This—to both—kept the conversation entirely aboveboard and confidential. Val had simply said that while he was engaged to one girl—someone his mother had introduced him to and liked, someone he'd thought he loved—he'd recently fallen for another. And quite out of the blue, quite unexpectedly. But it had thrown him, made him question everything.

“And I've suddenly realized how little I know about her—my fiancée. How little we know about each other. You see, we haven't known each other very long.”

Stephen explained that his situation was different: he was in love with someone he'd known for years. When Val said to Stephen, “So what's the problem?” Stephen wasn't sure what to say, how to explain. Then he said, “Class . . . background, that sort of thing.”

Val stared at him, narrowing eyes for a moment. “It's not Daisy . . . not Daisy Forbes, is it? Because I know you liked her. I remember you talking about her quite often, and telling me . . .”

Stephen sucked hard on his cigarette. He wondered, thought for a minute about coming clean, telling Val the truth, but then he decided it was probably best to follow Val's example and keep names out of it. “No, not Daisy,” he replied.

“So . . . what's she like?” said Val, leaning forward, stubbing out his cigarette. “Pretty?” he asked, glancing up.

Stephen nodded, his lips sealed. He wanted to describe her, was
desperate to describe her, because after watching her for the best part of ten years, he knew it was something he could do, and do very well. He knew that he could describe her in such extraordinary detail it would reveal her identity.
Daisy . . .
how that name quickened his heart.

“And the other, Miss Fast Track?”

Stephen laughed. He looked away for a moment, remembering the previous night. “That's a sorry tale,” he said.

“Why's that?”

Stephen shook his head. “She has this way . . . when I'm a bit owled, of getting me to . . . you know, walk her home and so on.”

“And so on?”

“Yes,
and so on
.”

“And does the other one know—the one you're in love with?”

Stephen shuddered. “No, she does not, thank God. But it's got to stop, got to,” he said, refreshing their glasses with the malt whiskey Howard had given him. “I don't even want to . . . but when I've had a few, when she . . . you know, asks me to walk her home, and then . . .” He looked up at Val, and Val nodded.

“Hard when it's on offer, eh?”

They sat for a while in silence, their eyes fixed on the small fire. Then Stephen sat back and said, “So what about you and this young miss, the one you've fallen for? What's she like?”

Val stared back at Stephen with a strange smile.

“Well?” said Stephen, smiling back at him.

Val took a sip of his whiskey. “You know what? I'm going to tell you . . . but you must keep it in confidence, yes?”

Stephen nodded. “Of course.”

“It's Daisy.”

Stephen barely heard what came after, but when Valentine said, “And then I kissed her,” Stephen's glass of malt whiskey slipped from his fingers to the floor.

It was a fine day with a clear sky and soft breeze, and Stephen had been up early. For lack of anything better to do—or rather, for something to do, to distract him—he'd decided to wash the Rolls. But even as he worked, a sequence of images flooded his mind. And one in particular took him back, to a midsummer evening some three years before.

He had been in the greenhouse with his father, potting up geraniums for Mrs. Forbes, watching the man's shaky hands as he carefully tended the plants, listening as his father intermittently hummed some half-forgotten tune that had surfaced in his memory. Stephen had loved those moments, when there had been just the two of them, working in warm security, in virtual silence; his father from time to time glancing up to smile in sheer, undiluted pleasure at the sight of a tiny bud or newly opened petal. Simple stuff.

But this night, as his father went off to fetch more compost,
Daisy had appeared in the doorway. And that image of her standing in the doorway of the greenhouse was seared in his memory. She had been wearing a pale blue cotton dress and a broad-brimmed straw hat, and the westerly light, still bright and golden, had shone through the thin fabric of her dress, revealing the shape of her legs. She had stood there for some time, picking at the peeling paint and saying something about something not being fair.

“They're all against me,” she'd said, and then screamed.

He'd moved quickly, seen the sting and not thought for a second of what was needed: had simply lifted her wrist to his mouth. A few days later, when he was painting the garage doors, she had come up to him—quite calmly—telling him that she thought she had been stung again, this time on the other wrist. But there had been no sting, none that he could find. He could have pretended, could have put her skin to his mouth again, and he'd wanted to. But somehow it seemed wrong. And he could not lie: not to her. She was—had always been—worth more than that.

Later, he had wondered whether she had been playing with him, whether she had known all along that there was no sting. This in itself had fascinated him, excited him and given him endless hours of pleasure—imagining the machinations of her desire and intent; but, ultimately, it seemed too much to hope. And yet there had been other times when she had sought him out—to ask him the name of something or to help her find a particular leaf or plant or nest, to draw or paint. And though he loved that she came to him, loved that he could help her and cherished the times, as he always had, when they were together and alone, he wondered if his love—so undiluted and luminous—was as obvious to her as it was to him.

And so for a while, in order to counteract this, to somehow dim and diminish and cloud it, he had adopted a more dismissive approach. Had been studiedly offhand with her and avoided any eye contact, because that was the worst, when she looked at him—directly at him—and he looked back at her. He knew then that he was lost and that she would surely see. But this indifferent approach hadn't lasted very long, simply because he found it so difficult to be like that with her, and because to
not
look at her was one of the hardest things he'd ever done and had meant he'd made up for it by staring when he thought she wasn't looking and had then been caught out, which was possibly worse, and more embarrassing.

Once, when they were younger, there had been an easy and uninhibited camaraderie between them, with no consciousness of any division in their station, what they should or should not do, how they should or should not be, what they could or could not say. They had been friends, equal in everything other than their age and sex, and sometimes—because he was older—their knowledge. But as the years passed, as they'd grown older, this had changed—on his part, at least. Daisy the girl became Daisy the woman, and there was nothing Stephen could do to stop the love he'd first felt—when he'd wished she had been
his
sister. Sisterly love turned to something altogether different, and by the time Stephen carved their initials on the trunk of the great beech by the gate to the woods he was already dreaming of his future with her.

When Stephen glanced up and saw her, walking across the courtyard toward him, he put down the chamois leather and quickly ran his hand over his hair. He'd dreamed of her, woken up thinking
of her, walked out hoping for her. This day was no different from any other.

“I imagine you had a bit of a sore head yesterday,” Daisy said, smiling.

“Just a bit.”

“I wanted to—”

“I hear you and Valentine have become quite friendly,” he said quickly, interrupting her. And immediately he wanted to kick himself. He'd promised himself he wouldn't mention it, wouldn't say anything at all. He'd spent half the night telling himself that Vincent's kiss had been stolen rather than given, and then lain awake at dawn torturing himself again with the image of them together. How long had their kiss lasted? Had Daisy enjoyed it? Was she in love with him?

“What do you mean?” Daisy asked.

He couldn't hold back. “He told me, Daisy,” he said, louder and more dramatic than he intended, and sounding like a jealous lover—even to his own ears. “Valentine told me what happened between you,” he added, quieter.

“Oh, that,” said Daisy, turning away from him. “It was nothing. Anyway, he's engaged to be married.”

“Which makes it all the more wrong.”

“I agree. It was a mistake . . . a huge mistake. And really, I never wanted to kiss him.”

“So why did you?” he asked, unable to stop himself.

“I'm not sure . . . Are you jealous?”

“No, but I was concerned. You've only just met the man,” he added, trying to laugh.

“Concerned? Your own behavior that same night was hardly exemplary. You were drunk, Stephen.”

“Yes, and I want to apologize. I know I made a fool of myself . . . It's not something I'm very proud of.”

Her hair was loose, pushed behind her ears and hanging down beyond her elbows. She wore her long fur coat and a dark green woolen beret pulled so far down her head that it almost covered her eyes, which were shielded by a pair of sunglasses—belonging to Iris, he presumed. She kicked nonchalantly at the gritted yard, her hands pushed deep into her pockets. Then she looked up, stepped toward him and blew a strand of hair from her mouth.

“Really, why do you think you made a fool of yourself?” she asked.

She was smiling again now, and he couldn't help but smile too. On one side of her mouth—the side that curved up, because she had that lopsided way of smiling and always had had—there was a dimple; a tiny crescent of a dimple that had been there as long as he'd known that smile. When she turned away—still smiling—she removed the sunglasses, lifted her head and squinted up at the sun. He took in her profile with an all too familiar yearning: the line of her chin, pale skin of her neck. What it must be to hold her, to hold her and kiss her, he thought.

She turned to him, stepped nearer. “Well . . . ?”

He was in his overalls, hadn't yet combed his hair or shaved and looked a sight, he knew. He said, “
Well
 . . . ,” staring back at her, “I hope I didn't make you feel uncomfortable or anything.”

“Stephen, of every man I know—and granted, I don't know too
many—you're the least likely to . . .” She paused. “You're the one I most trust.”

He wanted to say then,
Oh, Daisy Forbes, I Bloody Love You. I Love You So Much.
But instead they stood smiling at each other, for what seemed to him like a blissful eternity. Eventually he said, “That makes me happy. And I hope it'll always be the case.”

She looked away, embarrassed, he thought, and began kicking at the ground once more. “The other night,” she said tentatively, “when you talked about going to New Zealand . . .” She turned and glanced at him sideways with a new coyness. “Do you remember what you said?”

He nodded.

“Did you mean it?”

“I told you, I think I made a bit of a fool of myself.”

She shook her head. “No. Don't say that. I know you were . . . tight, and it sort of makes sense, but I need you to tell me the truth . . . I need you to tell me if you meant what you said.”

“Every word and more.”

She stared back at him and nodded. Then, with a newly serious expression, she said, “I need to tell
you
something. The thing is, Stephen,” and he closed his eyes for a second or two, relishing the sound of his name on her lips, “I came back to your flat to tell you that . . . well, you see . . .” She paused. And he waited. But as he waited, as he stood waiting for words he was famished for, something began to flicker in his peripheral vision, and as it gathered substance and grew more solid and dark, he became aware that whatever it was, was moving at quite a pace from the back driveway toward them.
Don't look . . . Finish the sentence . . . Tell me.

“Stephen!”

It was Daisy who turned away first; he simply followed her gaze. But the sound of his name on another's lips shattered the intimacy, stopped Daisy in her tracks and threw his heart like a small stone from a cliff. It was gone. The sentence could never be recovered. He knew it the second he turned his head and saw Tabitha Farley carrying what very much looked like his missing suit jacket.

“You forgot this the other night,” Tabitha said, moving rapidly toward Stephen and eyeing Daisy with a tight smile and a tart, “Morning.”

“Daisy Forbes—Tabitha Farley; Tabitha Farley—Daisy Forbes,” he said, introducing them plainly, then closing his eyes. Of all the moments for Tabitha Farley to appear. Tabitha Bloody Farley who had never in her life set foot on Eden Hall soil . . .

“Ah yes,” he said, regaining control and opening his eyes. “I was wondering where I'd left that.” He glanced to Daisy, who looked back at him, eyebrows raised, intrigued. “I was going to head over to the pub to see if it was there, in fact . . .”

But as soon as he'd said this he wished he had not, because Tabitha then began: “No, you silly, you didn't leave it at the pub; you left it at mine! And I don't know for the life of me how you walked home in the freezing cold in the middle of the night without it, but I said, I'll make sure it gets back to him and, well, what with it being Christmas Day yesterday, I said, well, I won't take it up there today because he'll probably be busy and he won't need it anyway if he's indoors, and everyone's always indoors at Christmas . . . but I knew you'd be wondering and I wanted to make sure you got it, so here it is,” she ended breathlessly, passing
him the creased garment. She then moved alongside him, linked her arm through his and stared back at Daisy, who said something about it being a glorious morning and then turned and walked away.

He watched her go, watched her go as if she was leaving his life forever, and Tabitha must have sensed something, because she said, “Oh, did I just interrupt something? I almost feel like I have.”

And he wanted to say,
Yes, you have, you've interrupted my life's dream.

Mabel stood at the window looking up at the pale sky. Reg had already gone, had left after breakfast to set off for Dorking, where he was to spend Boxing Day with his late wife's sister and family. He could of course have returned home the previous evening, but she had managed to persuade him to stay another night. “Why?” she had said. “Why go back there when you don't need to, when you can go directly to Irene's from here?”

She glanced at the envelope, propped up on her desk and addressed simply to “Mabel.” It was silly, really, how she felt about a note, and nothing more than a simple thank-you, but it was from him to her, and even the sight of her name in his hand made her feel quite giddy.

Their good-bye had been brief. He had said, “It's been perfect. Thank you.” That was all. When he had held her hand, then lifted it to his mouth, she had smiled: His mustache always tickled her. Then he had handed her the note. Now, standing at the window in
her boudoir with the door closed, she imagined him arriving in that place, Dorking.