The Peacock Summer
Page 35
‘No,’ says Maggie, a feeling of foreboding coming over her. ‘But we still need you.’
‘No, you don’t. You’ve got the professionals on your side now, and more than enough workers and volunteers ready and willing to get stuck in around here. I think half the village has signed up to help in the gardens alone. It feels like it’s the right time for me to leave.’
Maggie stares at him, lost for words. ‘But . . . but what if I don’t want you to go?’
‘You’ve done it, Maggie. You’ve pulled it off. You’ve saved Cloudesley.’
‘Yes, but not without your help.’
‘Well, it was my pleasure . . . mostly,’ he teases with a small smile. ‘What will you do?’
Maggie shrugs. ‘I don’t know. I haven’t had time to think much beyond handling Lillian’s probate and the restoration of the room.’
‘You’ve done your duty. More than.’ Will holds her gaze. ‘You don’t have to stay here, not if you don’t want to. Haven’t you wondered,’ he adds gently, ‘if it isn’t time for you to stop caretaking someone else’s legacy and start creating your own?’
She shrugs. ‘Perhaps.’ She thinks of the piles of sketches and the tentative paintings she has started over the last few weeks, working late into the night, the first feverish seeds of creativity building inside her again.
Will nods encouragingly. ‘There’s a big world out there waiting for you. The door is open.’
‘I think I’m a little afraid to leave. I seem to have an uncanny ability to make a wonderful mess of things. Maybe I should stay here in this bubble and carry on Lillian’s work.’
Will nods. ‘I understand, but I think that would be a shame.’ He clears his throat. ‘If you do decide to rejoin the rest of us, perhaps you’d give me a call sometime? We could go for a drink?’
Maggie nods, not trusting herself to speak.
Will hesitates a moment before adding, ‘I was wrong, you know. You’re nothing like Albie.’
Maggie leans against the stone balustrade and listens to his retreating footsteps. She looks out across the gardens, all the way to the woods beyond. There is nothing she can do to stop the tears falling, blurring the meadow and the trees into a hazy wash of yellows and greens.
Chapter 33
Maggie can hear the trees calling to her. Not the painted ones in the room that has so consumed her these past months, but the tall grey beeches standing in the woodland across the meadow.
She’d woken early, to heavy summer downpours, but after a quick breakfast and an hour or two spent sorting out the final odds and ends in her room and stuffing the last of her clothes into a large black suitcase, she feels a building restlessness to be outside.
Dragging the case down the giant curved staircase, she notices that the rain has stopped and the sun now glints through the cracks of the thinning clouds. And there, in the distance, is the sound of the wind moving through the trees, calling her. She’s sure of it.
Maggie leaves the suitcase at the back door and pulls on her boots and a raincoat. Out on the terrace, a group of visitors stand near one of the volunteer guides, listening to the man’s patter as he takes them through the history of the house. She smiles in greeting, then carries on down the stone steps and across the lawn.
The grass in the meadow is wet and the ground gives a little beneath her feet. The herd of alpacas that have taken up residence in the meadow graze in the far distance. Maggie cuts a path towards the distant stile, watching as a flock of starlings takes flight, swooping up from the earth and across the bone-coloured sky until they come to settle in the treetops.
Stepping into the woods, Maggie senses the shift in atmosphere; here the air is a little cleaner, the light a little softer, glancing off the smooth, silver-grey trunks and dancing in the green canopy. She breathes the trees’ exhalation, takes it in and makes it her own, inhales the moist-earth scent rising up from beneath her boots and fills her lungs. The leaves rustle in the breeze, dripping the last of the raindrops in a steady beat.
She treads carefully, stepping over thick tree roots, cast out like coiled ropes, anchoring the trees. For once her mind is clear. She’s not thinking of contractors and bills or plans and progress. Among the trees, Maggie loses herself, allowing her feet to lead her in whichever direction they please. This place, she knows, is her home; as familiar to her as the embrace of an old friend, and all around, her own invisible roots snaking out, anchoring her to the soil, the house, the hills around. In this moment, there is no place in the world she knows so well or loves as deeply.
Eventually she leaves the trees and joins up with the lane, walking the asphalt for a short distance before turning through the creaking wooden gate into the churchyard. It’s a Monday morning and the place is empty – just rows of ancient grey headstones, floral tributes dotted here and there. The path among the graves is well trodden. Maggie follows it behind the church to a simple headstone that marks the place where Lillian has been buried.
She brushes spots of rain from a nearby bench and sits for a while, thinking about her grandmother. She wishes she could talk to Lillian about the painted room. She wishes she could understand, fully, what it meant to her, and reassure her that the legacy will be preserved.
She remembers talking with Jack all those months ago, when he had reminded her about life being fleeting, how its most beautiful moments are impermanent and hard to hold on to. But what Jack has achieved through his painting is something both astonishing and comforting. He has achieved the impossible: he has captured a host of bygone moments and ensured their longevity, long after the sun has set, or a tide turned, or a life passed. It is thanks to this legacy that the house remains and will continue to stand in these hills for many more years to come. The peacock-carved front doors will continue to open. Visitors will arrive and walk the rooms. The gardens will fill with children and laughter. She wishes she could tell Lillian how Cloudesley will thrive once more.
Sitting on the bench, she wonders what else she would tell Lillian, if she had the chance. Perhaps she’d tell her that she’s going to be OK; that she’s no longer afraid of who she is or the mistakes she has made. That she’s stronger now, thanks to her grandmother and everything she has left her – not just the painted room, but all the lessons she has taught her. Perhaps she would tell Lillian about the inspiration she’s found for her own paintings, a new collection built from her experiences of life and loss over the past months. Seize the life that was meant to be yours. Make it magnificent. No half measures. She hears the echoes of Lillian’s words and smiles.
Maggie stretches her arms up towards the sky. High above she sees a flock of birds soaring against a patch of blue. She stands and presses a hand to the cool headstone. Thank you, she says; the only words she knows she really needs to say.
It’s as she turns to leave that she notices the object lying at the foot of her grandmother’s headstone. A glint of silver-orange lying among the green grass. She bends down and picks it up, turning the stone over in her hand, her finger running over the smooth curves of an arrow-shaped flint with a perfect orange flame nestled at its core. Something beautiful. For Lillian.
Carefully, she returns the stone to the grave before making her way back to Cloudesley, and to the life awaiting her beyond the peacock-crested gates.
Acknowledgments
Heartfelt thanks to my agent, Sarah Lutyens, and my publishers Clare Hey and Vanessa Radnidge, who all helped to make this book far better than the one I initially gave them. Thank you to Rabab Adams, Olivia Barber, Jennifer Breslin, Jo Carpenter, Andrew Cattanach, Ella Chapman, Francesca Davies, Katie Espiner, Rebecca Gray, Sophie Hutton-Squire, Juliet Mahony, Christa Moffitt, Brigid Mullane, Daniel Pilkington, Justin Ractliffe, Louise Sherwin-Stark, Chris Sims, Isabel Staas, Lydia Tasker, Jennifer Wilson, Mel Winder and the talented teams at Orion and Hachette Australia who have worked their magic on The Peacock Summer. Thank you to all the booksellers out there who spend their days matching the right book to th
e right reader. Thank you to David Andrews at the National Trust for answering my various queries regarding the acquisition of old properties. And thank you to the Arvon Foundation, for the time and space to finish this novel at The Hurst in Shropshire.
Every book is a challenge to write, but this one hit a wall after a personal tragedy. For their guidance and counsel I thank the extraordinary Wendy Liu and Louise Adams. I owe love and gratitude to Gill Norman, John Norman, Will Norman, Jude Richell, Gracie Richell, Adam Simpson, Auriol Bishop, Alexis Kenny, Marthe le Prevost, Toni Byrne, Clare Young, Emily Biesbroek, Steph Lees, Ilde Naismith-Beeley, Stephanie Goodwin, Sara Hutton-Potts, Saul Wordsworth, Fraser Tant, Karl Wilson and the “Hodder Girls”. Thank you for your support, and for helping me to pick up the pieces.
I first talked to my husband, Matt, about this novel on one of our long drives to Melbourne, the kids in the back of the car and the open road ahead of us. While we no longer travel roads together, Matt continues to inspire me every day. I hope he would be proud of how we strive to live with his immense light and love in our hearts.
Finally, this book is dedicated to my sister, Jess. Everyone needs a ‘Jess’ in their lives; someone to make you laugh till you cry, and hold your hand on the darkest days. You are still the only person I feel brave enough to share my first drafts with. Thank you – for everything.
About the Author
HANNAH RICHELL was born in Kent and spent her childhood years in Buckinghamshire and Canada. After graduating from the University of Nottingham, she worked in the book publishing and film industries in both London and Sydney. She is a dual citizen of Great Britain and Australia, and lives in the South West of England with her family. Richell is the author of the international bestsellers Secrets of the Tides (published in the United States as The House of Tides) and The Shadow Year, and her work has been translated into nineteen languages.
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Copyright
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
THE PEACOCK SUMMER. Copyright © 2018 by Hannah Richell. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
First published in Great Britain in 2018 by Orion Books, an imprint of The Orion Publishing Group Ltd.
FIRST U.S. EDITION
Cover design by Caroline Johnson
Type design by Sarah Brody
Cover photographs © plainpicture/Mint Images; © GlobalP/iStock/Getty Images (peacock)
Digital Edition JULY 2019 ISBN: 978-0-06-289941-5
Version 05282019
Print ISBN: 978-0-06-289934-7 (pbk.)
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