Pulling her blouse over her head her eye snagged on the ring he’d placed on her finger hours before. Twisting it round she admired the way the ruby caught the light encased as it was with swirling gold tendrils weaved with six tiny seed pearls. He’d been carrying it around in his pocket long before he’d picked up the nerve to speak to her, she remembered with a tender smile. Now the ring would be a reminder, a reminder and a torment but she’d never remove it. She’d never remove it, her fingers lightly counting the pearls with the tip of her nail. Six pearls to remind her of the six most precious days that would have to last a lifetime.
Dragging on her cardigan, she thought about the immediate future only because she couldn’t stay here. She couldn’t stay in Paris with the sight of him just a window away to haunt her. She’d go back home. She’d have to because, apart from Cara’s shoebox lounge, she had nowhere to go. She’d return home and look for some kind of teaching job and rent a little cottage far away from everyone. She’d be just like that girl in the photo but sadder. Then she’d had hope in her heart for a bright future, for a future full of potential and possibility. Now she was just a poor little poor girl with her sax for a friend. She wouldn’t even be able to take Minou with her. It just wouldn’t be fair to make him spend six months of his life in quarantine, not after what he’d been through and Cara wasn’t allowed pets.
No, she’d ask just one thing more from this kind handsome man even now rolling on his side, his hand tucked up under his head in lieu of a pillow. Making up her mind was easy, leaving him now, leaving him forever was proving the hardest thing she’d ever been asked to do. As the sun finally started to appear over the rooftops, she knew these last few precious moments had come to an end.
She let her gaze wander across his face, his mouth, his throat one last time before pressed a silent kiss against his forehead and making her way out of the office.
Chapter Seven
14th May. My life is over. Welcome to my life.
Back in her apartment, the first thing she did was phone the airport to secure a seat on the next available flight. It didn’t give her much time but that’s exactly how she wanted it. Racing around the apartment like a mad woman she threw things into her bags with no thought for anything other than her grandmother”s gold watch ticking away the seconds on her wrist.
She managed to pack everything apart from Minou who was watching her from the back of the sofa with a blank-eyed stare. She finally persuaded him to clamber into the cardboard box she’d found by padding it out with her fluffiest towel just as the taxi hooted softly from the street below. All that was left was a quick call to Cara to come and pick up the keys before lugging all her worldly goods down four flights of stairs. With her heart now in residence across the road she closed the door on her life in France with a resounding slam.
“Hey mademoiselle, you can’t bring that cat in here.” The cabbie, just like cabbies across the globe frowned at the audacity of one of his customers bringing anything half unusual into the back of his cab.
Minou, a large handsome cat hiding his good looks under a scrawny exterior was unusual to say the least.
“Oh do hush, you’ll scare him.” She threw him a glowing smile, the one she practiced in the mirror before pestering Hopper’s wife for another slice of her famed cherry and rhubarb pie. “Look, I’ll give you a hefty tip if you can take me to the Avenue des Etats-Unis where I have every intention of leaving the cat.” She added with emphasise. “Then you can take me on to the airport.”
“How much?”
“Fifty euros.”
“Done.” He lifted the rest of her bags and, placing them in the boot turned back, one eye still on Minou. “Don’t get me wrong mademoiselle; I love cats, just not in the back of my cab.”
“Well, you won’t have to worry about Minou for long will you monsieur?” She held the now meowing box even tighter on her lap. “You won’t even know he’s here.”
“Harrumph.”
Resting back against the seat, she forced her eyelids to close, reluctant to give in to any lurking temptations of turning her head towards the building, his building. She’d said her goodbyes earlier - that was all.
She didn’t remember the flight. She didn’t remember anything after she’d left a meowing Minou scratching at the window as he watched her climbing back into the taxi. She must have paid the taxi driver for getting her across town just in time. She must have stood at check-in behind, or in front of, a motley assortment of other passengers destined for Gatwick. She must have accepted, or more likely declined the drink offered but she couldn’t remember. All she remembered was the look on his face when she’d told him about Rupert; Rupert and the future that lay ahead.
Arriving in Gatwick she made her way to the train station to catch the next train heading towards Sunnymeads, the nearest railway station to Cosgrave Manor.
It was only as the train approached the station she remembered no one would be waiting for her. Apart from Cara, no one knew she was heading home with her tail between her legs. With no taxi rank outside the small, rural unmanned station she had a very long walk ahead. Looking at the bashed up telephone box in disgust she couldn’t even call anyone as the one thing she should have done when she’d returned to the apartment was put her phone on charge. In the race to catch the next flight it was the one thing she needed to remember and the one thing she’d forgotten.
Dragging her bags out of the train she looked around the deserted platform with a sigh, which soon turned into a scream at the sound of her name.
“Ah there you are, Miss Sarah.”
The sense of relief at the sight of Hopper was just one thing too much. The tears that had refused to fall now streaked down her face in steady streams as if they’d never stop. The Hopper’s were staff in her parents employ, something she was never allowed to forget. But to her this middle-aged couple were more than that. They were her friends. In truth all she wanted to do was throw herself into his arms and let him take over but years of training by her mother meant there was still that invisible divide to hammer down first.
“How did you know…?”
“Miss Cara phoned Beverley.”
“So my parents?” She eyed him warily.
“Your parents are still away, Miss. They’ve popped down to St Tropez for a few days. They’re not due to return until Monday week.” He avoided looking at her, instead thrusting a sparkling white handkerchief into her hand with an embarrassed cough. “Come on, let’s get you home.”
He picked up both bags as if they were tissue paper light instead of being full of proverbial bricks, kitchen sinks and the odd statue or ten of the Eiffel Tower. “I hope you’re hungry, Beverley has a feast prepared.”
Was she hungry? She asked herself, following his stiff back out of the station and towards the waiting Bentley. She should be hungry. She’d missed breakfast, and last night’s supper too as she remembered the champagne and other bits and pieces she’d offered to her neighbour. No, she wasn’t hungry but she should be.
“Hop in the back, Miss, I’ll have you home in no time.”
“Can I sit in front, Hopper?” She’d wiped her face clean and now clutched the balled up hankie between tight fingers as if her life depended on it.
“Certainly Miss…”
“I do wish you’d call me Sarah,” she added, examining the familiar grey-haired man pulling out onto the road.
She’d known Hopper all her life and had never seen him in anything other than the dark grey suit he habitually wore. Did he wear it on his days off? Did he sleep in it? If she rang the bell at 3 am would he appear fully dressed without a hair out of place, or did he have suitably conservative night attire instead? She just bet he wore one of those old-fashioned, striped night shirts with matching hat that came with its own built-in tassel.
Staring across at his profile, she realised she’d never questioned anything about the man who’d been resident at Cosgrave Manor for as long as she could remember. It was as i
f he was a stranger, a stranger she’d lived in close proximity to for most of her life. She thought he liked her, but did he really? After all, her father was the one paying for his service and his loyalty.
All of a sudden it interested her, he interested her. How did he spend his days off, for instance? Where did he disappear to for the last two weeks of July; the same two weeks every July? She wanted to get to know him, but would he want to get to know her, the real her? Would he even be bothered in making conversation outside the usual butler/employer speak? She was about to find out.
“Just Sarah? I couldn’t do that, Miss. What would your parents say?”
“But you’ve known me forever, Hopper and I don’t even know your first name?”
“It’s Arnold, Miss.”
“Now that figures.” She threw him a twinkling smile.
“Why?”
“Well, let’s just say, when it’s just us, I’m going to call you Arnie, after Arnie Schwarzenegger, you know?”
He chuckled. “I do know. As long as it’s not in front of your parents I’d be honoured er, Sarah.”
“Thank you.” Resting back in her seat she closed her eyes with a sigh. “Wake me up when we get there, Arnie.”
But he didn’t have to wake her. She knew instinctively when the car rumbled over the cattle ramps that she was nearly home. She loved Cosgrave Manor with a passion. She loved every stone and shrub, every blade of grass and every window and, looking up at the large, grey, stone, frontage there were many to love. She’d tried to count them once but had lost count at forty three: forty three bright shiny windows, and for the first time in her life she wondered who cleaned them. All those ladders to reach the top windows and not even one scaffolding rod to help.
“How many windows are there Arnie, I used to try and count them as a child but I always gave up?”
“Fifty five Miss, er Sarah, if you include the small circular one in the centre. Funny you asking that?”
“I wondered who had to clean them. Not you, you have enough to do.”
“Bless you. No, not me. The Master and Mistress are very strict on what the butler can and can’t do. Now the National Trust has taken over the management of the estate, they get a company in from London three times a year. The frames are original as you know so it’s important not to get just anybody in.”
“Of course it is,” she said, staring up at the Georgian pile built in the Nineteenth Century by the first Lord Cosgrave, whose painting still presided over the dark oppressive hall. She’d tried to forget her parents signing over the upkeep and control of Cosgrave Manor even if it had made complete sense at the time. The day-to-day upkeep was astronomical and the roof caving in over the back bedrooms was the last straw in a catalogue of disasters that had drained her parents coffers beyond belief. Although as disasters went, it wasn’t a patch on the one that had befallen Pascal, she reminded herself on a sigh.
So what if the next set of death duties would mean a forced sale? So what if her parents weren’t able to entertain on the grand scale of old? At least they still had a roof over their head even if their part of the house was roped off and limited to three bedrooms instead of thirty three. They still had a fantastic lounge, and an amazing brand spanking new kitchen. They could still afford the services of Hopper and Mrs Hopper, not to mention the most amazing holidays imaginable.
Staring up at the frontage with its Neo-Classical Grecian pillars she could quite happily ignore the signs indicating where the hourly tours started. It was embrace the National Trust, their sympathetic maintenance and subtle renovations, or sell it to some rich Russian oligarch. She knew which option she preferred.
“Come along.”
He frowned at the sight of her jumping out of the car instead of waiting for him to open the door.
“We can use the front entrance today without being mugged by some old biddy or other looking for the toilet,” he flung over his shoulder as he headed for the boot. “We’re so popular they’ve only allowed us one day off a week from those infuriating visitors trampling all over the place in their muddy size seven’s.”
“Don’t let it worry you, Arnie.” She clapped him on the back as she stared at the large mahogany front door. “It’s what pays your and Bev’s wages.”
“I know, but it’s not the same.” He shook his head in despair.
“But it’s the way of the world, Arnie. I do believe you’re a snob,” she added on a laugh. “I’d much rather be happy in a gatehouse than have to worry about how to heat this ruddy great pile of bricks.”
As soon as the words were out, she realised the truth behind them. She’d be much happier in the gatehouse, Pascal’s gatehouse, than anywhere else in the world. For all that she loved every stone and blade of grass of Cosgrave Manor; she loved Pascal a hundred, a million times more.
“But we don’t have a gatehouse?” He gave her a sharp look before changing the subject. “Come along, Miss er Sarah. No need to look so glum. I’m sure Beverley will have the kettle boiled.”
Entering the wide, marble-tiled hall pierced down the centre by a sweeping staircase her eyes widened at the sight of all the familiar paintings showcased against the striking green embossed wallpaper. This was still home despite all the changes and home was what she needed right now. Her fingers ran along the outline of the fireplace as she thought about what else she needed.
What she really needed was her mother. She wanted to be pulled into that tight Chanel filled embrace and tell her all about Pascal. For, despite everything, she was still her mother and still always there for her, except when she wasn’t of course, suddenly remembering St Tropez with a grimace. The Hopper’s would do for now, they’d more than do.
Walking into the sitting room was always a shock. Her mother had wreaked changes innumerable and now the former second sitting room was an oasis of cool blues instead of the pea green wallpaper it replaced. She’d stripped away the antique panelling once she’d discovered woodworm lurking. But instead of paying to have it sympathetically replaced, she’d called in an interior designer friend from London who would have ripped out everything including the priceless plasterwork ceiling, if the National Trust hadn’t intervened with mutterings about British treasures being destroyed by some ignorant yuppie vandal from the city. So the plasterwork coving and ceiling rose remained, along with the cute little angel corbels that supported the original fireplace but that was all. Even the original floor had been covered with a thick white carpet to match the white leather sofas with coordinating sea blue cushions her mother had specially commissioned to match the wallpaper.
She followed Hopper across the room and along a short corridor before pushing the baize-covered door that led to the kitchen and on to the servant’s quarters; in this case the small flat they’d created from the old scullery and boot room.
“Well well, if it isn’t Miss Sarah. Aren’t you a sight for sore eyes?” Beverley, sitting in front of the scrubbed pine table, pushed the bowl of half shelled peas away before starting to stand up.
“No, you just stay where you are.” Sarah rushed forward to embrace her friend. “And you can drop the Miss, isn’t that right, Arnie?” she added, throwing a sparkling look in his direction.
“Arnie is it? Well whatever next.” But her eyes belied her words as she hugged Sarah even closer before standing up and turning towards the kettle. “What about a cuppa and then you can tell old Beverley all about it.”
You’re not old,” she replied. Beverley hadn’t changed a bit in all the years she’d known her. What with her chic bobbed hair, now a little grey around the edges and rosy cheeks: she was just the way she remembered when Hopper had brought her back to the house as his bride all those years ago. He’d said he’d found her under a rose bush, and to an impressionable five year old she’d believed him. Now she wondered how they’d actually met.
“I wish me ole back could hear you, child,” she said, but with a smile on her face as she switched on the kettle and gathered together
matching cups and saucers. Sarah wandered over to the American style fridge and, pulling it open removed a jug of milk.
“Here, you shouldn’t be doing that…”
“Yes I should, I’m not completely helpless you know,” she added, placing the jug on the table. “I see we’re still getting milk fresh from the farm?”
“Too right, I can’t be doing with that nasty bottled stuff from the supermarket. I send Hopper first thing in the morning with an empty jug to catch it as soon as it comes out of the pasteurizer.” She set plates and forks beside the milk jug, pretty plates to match the cups and saucers. “If you’re in a mind to help, I baked a cake after Miss Cara phoned. It’s in the larder cupboard.”
“Mmm, chocolate fudge.” Their eyes met. “You really are a darling.”
“Well, I thought you’d need a bit of feeding up.”
“What, after three months in the gastronomic capital of the world?” She laughed.
“I can’t be doing with all them fussy sauces and the like. Apart from the bread and cakes you can keep all that foreign muck.”
“That’s a little harsh, Beverley, although…” She paused, holding the fork between her lips; her lids closing over pleasure-filled eyes. “I have to admit I haven’t tasted anything to rival your chocolate cake.”
“There, you see…” Beverley pulled back her chair and, placing the earthenware pot on the little mat in the centre, proceeded to fill the Edwardian china cups with tea strong enough to strip varnish. “Something tells me you have news child, and it’s not happy news?”
“No, but not now.” She smiled. “Now I’m going to finish my tea and do the washing up while you sit there and drain the pot. If I don’t wake up by supper time,” she said, filling the gleaming white butler sink with water, “just leave me. I can always make myself a sandwich later.”
The Englishwoman Trilogy: Box set of: Englishwoman in Paris, Englishwoman in Scotland, Englishwoman in Manhattan Page 10