He couldn’t make sense of what he’d done; he couldn’t make sense of what he was doing now. OCD and his temper had always been powerful allies. When they aligned, he was pretty much screwed. Which was the real reason he had to leave.
Bravo, James. Once again, self-preservation trumps all.
The bird of prey, the buzzard, cried overhead and James watched it circle.
And then he did the only thing he could do: he ran.
Chapter 27
The day was killing her by minutes, time moving as slowly as it had on Isaac’s first morning at preschool. Tilly had been watching the clock since 6:00 a.m., marking James’s progression from her life: He’ll be getting in the taxi; he’ll be boarding the plane; he’ll be gone. Every part of her ached, exhausted from the weight of her thoughts.
She wanted to huddle up and ignore the world, but she had promised her afternoon to Isaac, her evening to her mother and her lunchtime to Rowena—if Ro ever hung up the phone.
“Countryside Steward Scheme Payment Rates,” Tilly read from the pamphlet abandoned on Rowena’s desk. And tried not to listen as Rowena, who was seated opposite with her feet up and the phone cradled into her neck, berated her banker.
Tiddly and Winks snored on their tartan beanbags, the large, black clock on the wall ticked a funereal knell and rain tapped against the estate office skylights with the even sound of persistence. At home, days like this were precious. Summer rain in North Carolina fell only in torrents that flattened plants and swept away soil before disappearing back up into the sky. Pretty much like James.
A bluebottle buzzed through the dust on the windowsill, and Tilly stretched. Yuck, there was that scrunching noise behind her ears again. Was this how middle age sounded—could you hear your body failing as everything drooped and sagged? Well, at least she didn’t have to worry about that with her boobs. See? There was always a positive side. Just as tomorrow she would wake up, post-date with Sebastian, and know that James’s departure had been a blessing. Right?
Wasting time was strangely unsettling, like walking into one of those fancy salons David loved sending her to for some exotic-sounding beauty treatment when really, he could have said “I love you” by ordering Hawaiian pizza once in a while. (According to David, the only acceptable pizza topping was pepperoni.)
She stared at the bamboo flooring, an unexpected choice that certainly made a statement. Lord Roxton’s estate office had been a hole of a place lined with dark paneling and cluttered with tack and shotguns. Tilly shuddered, remembering the dried mud ground into the floor, the odor of damp and the scuttling noises that kept her hovering by the door.
The current estate office, with its whitewashed walls and track lighting, had the atmosphere of a studio. Unlike the dumping ground that was Rowena’s bedroom, her office was neat and ordered, except for the scrunched-up balls of paper that had failed to reach the trash can. The huge plot map flanked by insurance certificates, the neat piles of receipt books, the clumps of paper layered symmetrically and the shelves of binders labeled income and invoices, spoke of efficient business practices. The only personal items were a peg of dog towels that reeked of wet Labrador and a multicolored photo frame. Tilly picked it up and smiled at Isaac.
“Bloody bankers.” Rowena slammed down the phone.
Tilly replaced the frame, angling it toward Rowena.
“So, James is gone.” Rowena squeezed her tea bag against the side of her chipped mug. “Did you know that he reorganized that mound of wellies in the butler’s pantry? Paired them all up. And cooked me a fab breakfast at eight every morning. I’m going to miss that Yank.” Rowena blew across her tea, sending a ribbon of steam toward Tilly. “This is when you say, ‘Yeah, but I’ll miss him more.’”
“I’m not sure that I will, though.” Tilly paused. “Miss him.”
“Give it up, Petal. If you’re going to start lying, take lessons from me. I’m guessing James confessed undying love?”
Tilly nearly said yes. But was it a confession of love or words of obsession?
Rowena kept her eyes trained on Tilly. “That’s a yes?”
“He rabbited on about pain and then left. It was hardly a Hallmark movie moment.”
“Hallmark movie?” Rowena frowned. “Is that a cultural thing?”
“Smushy saga with tears.” Although there had been tears after James left, and Tilly had cried until her head throbbed. But the tears had been for David.
“Ah.” Rowena thumbed through a stack of papers on her desk. “That explains why I didn’t hear the two of you bonking out your goodbyes last night. Multiple orgasms seemed inevitable after I saw you skating along my private road looking all lovey-dovey.” Her green eyes flashed with glee. “I hope he at least gave a decent farewell snog? Or a toe-curling grope? Strikes me a man that sensual would know what to do with his hands.”
“Don’t be crass.”
“Don’t be a prude.”
Tilly picked up the Countryside Steward Scheme pamphlet and placed it on top of the stuffed in-tray. “It’s always about sex with you, isn’t it?”
Rowena shrugged and then jerked when her ancient desk chair wobbled. “Romantic relationships are sex, Haddy. Otherwise, what’s the point? I mean, who spouts this twaddle about marrying your best friend? I have a best friend—you. Shouldn’t the whole partner thing be on a different level? And doesn’t sex, the most intimate thing you can share with another human being, take you to that level? What else is there?”
“Love.”
Rowena gave her the how-stupid-do-you-think-I-am look.
“Come on, Ro. You’re the one who believed in white knights. What went wrong?”
“Brilliant tactic.” Rowena clapped slowly. “Deflect the conversation from yourself.”
“It’s not a tactic. I don’t want to talk about some guy who floated through my life and then vanished. You, on the other hand, are here to stay. Best bud till death do us part. And I’m curious…. How did you morph from the poster child for Elvis Costello’s ‘I Wanna be Loved’ to spokesperson for Spinsters R Us? You’re not going to devolve into Miss Havisham, are you?”
“Ha, bloody, ha. I also used to believe in Father Christmas, but you don’t rail on me for not hanging up my stocking every Christmas Eve.” Rowena threw one leg on top of the other, so that her right ankle rested on her left knee. Her gypsy skirt cascaded between her thighs while she picked at a hole in her fuchsia sock, making it larger.
“Let’s just say that I grew up and realized my happy ending didn’t feature a man. The love of my life is, evidently, three thousand acres of land so beautiful that I get choked up every time I look at it.” Rowena’s chair creaked as she turned around. “Although maybe not today.”
The landscape behind her was shrouded in gray light that was more suited to a November afternoon.
Rowena swung back. “You know how hard I fought against this, how determined I was not to spend forty years of my life without a decent holiday. Not that we would have been capable of doing the family bucket and spade thing even if Daddy had been able to get away…but the world took on a rosy glow when I discovered conservancy. Corny as it sounds, I’m making a difference. For the first time in my life, it’s not about me. And when I die, the estate goes to The National Trust, so the land can’t be gobbled up for more naff housing developments. Keeping Bramwell Chase a village will be my legacy, not perpetuating the Roxton name.” Rowena tugged around her ponytail and braided then un
braided it. “Besides, mice have eaten the Roxton christening gown. Definitely a sign that there isn’t meant to be a future generation of Roxtons tripping off into the great blue Christendom yonder. Does that bother me? Not a jolt. I have a grand life. Why ruin it with a man?”
When Rowena was on a tear, there was little to do but listen. Tilly sighed and gave up all hope that they’d make it to The Flying Duck in time for lunch, not that she was hungry. In fact, the thought of food made her feel sick.
“Men are like combine harvesters,” Rowena said. “Big and loud and programmed to churn up your life with ridiculous provisos like watching rubbish telly before going to bed at nine o’clock every night. Sod that. Sometimes I sit up all night watching films because I can.”
Tilly thought of David’s 10:00 p.m. lights-out and the nights she had waited for his breathing to fall into a rhythm so she could tiptoe back into the great room and read.
“It’s bad enough having male worker bees buzzing around me.” Rowena opened and closed her desk drawer. What the hell was going on with her today? She was more fidgety than James. “Every day I have to contend with inadequate men—an alcoholic gamekeeper, two farmworkers no one else would employ, and let’s not forget the ancient gardener whose sole talents are mowing in a straight line and maintaining a picture-perfect crinkle-crankle hedge. Why I promised Daddy I wouldn’t fire them is a mystery to me.”
Promise, my ass. Your heart has a gooey center.
“Thank God I’m down to one tenanted farm,” Rowena continued. “Otherwise I would have even more useless specimens of manhood in my life. Of course, that excludes my darling Isaac, who is male perfection personified. And Archie has potential, and James is pleasingly lacking in testosterone.”
Tilly opened her mouth to ask about Sebastian, but Rowena started talking again.
“Men are good for little more than a quick poke, Haddy. And for the record, I’ve given that up. Eight months celibate and counting.”
Tilly’s jaw went slack. Rowena hadn’t been celibate since she was sixteen.
“Yes, my gyny bits are rusting away as we speak.” Rowena peered down her sweater.
“Okay, so forget the sex, but what about companionship? Don’t you get lonely, Rowena, patron saint of the countryside, rattling around in a house we used to call The Museum?”
Rowena flip-flopped her head. “Nope. The estate’s given me purpose, and the Hall is history incarnate. How can you beat that? They define me, announce to the world: this is Rowena Roxton. What defines you, MRH?”
“Motherhood.”
Rowena grabbed a piece of paper from her desk, screwed it up and hurled it at the trash can. And missed. “I said you, Matilda Rose Haddington.”
Tilly flushed with anger. “I can’t claim motherhood?”
“Scrape away motherhood, widowhood, wife-hood. Tell me what defines you.”
Tilly stared through the huge picture window into the soggy, monotone countryside, and saw her woods filled with bright shadows and the cries of hawks. “My business.”
Rowena began riffling through all the papers on her desk. “Convince me.”
Tilly sat on her retort, the one that said shan’t. Wasn’t she a teensy bit proud of Piedmont Perennials, a business she had built on word of mouth, not an advertising budget? Why not read that fat business plan Sari had mailed her, the one Tilly had shoved, unopened, into her knickers’ drawer? Besides, wasn’t that part of the reason she’d pushed James away—so she could figure out what defined her?
“I might expand into a retail nursery.” And why not? Tilly felt herself thawing inside.
“Damn, but we did good, didn’t we, Haddy? Found happiness in the rubble of our lives. I wish we could say the same for Sebastian, poor pet.” Rowena jangled her car keys. “Aha! Found them. Think he’ll stay…in the village?”
“Woodend is his, if he wants it.”
Rowena grew still. “Now why don’t you sound as happy about that as you should?”
Tilly shrugged; it was easier than attempting to explain.
“James has really wee’d in your bathwater, hasn’t he?”
“Yuck, Ro! What a horrid image.” Although apt, since James had certainly muddied the waters, not that they were clear to begin with. “James is irrelevant here.” What a heartless thing to say, but she had to stop this thread. James was gone, and that was that. “I’ve been offered a second chance with someone who was wound through my life like ivy. How many people get that?”
Rowena held up an unopened envelope and crinkled the window in an attempt to peek inside. “Isn’t this a third or fourth chance, or have we stopped counting?”
* * *
Tilly watched the day die and waited for her sense of disconnection to do the same. She squinted through one eye, then the other, but there wasn’t much to look at beyond mildew-colored clouds lumbering across the sky. And an empty gin glass. Everything swayed, even her emotions, although hopefully not too much, otherwise who knew what she might say if probed about James. She would acknowledge this once and not think on it again: she missed him, and it hurt like hell, the tear-me-apart-and-trample-on-the-bits-that-show-signs-of-life hell. Either that or she was blottoed.
“Where’s Isaac?” Sebastian, who had been closeted in the study with her mother, stepped onto the patio.
“Tree house.” Tilly closed her eyes, but the world continued to rock.
“James get off okay?”
Clearly, James’s departure was the hot topic of the day. Everyone had asked her about it. First Isaac—Can James come over to hunt for black snakes when we get home?—then Rowena, then her mother—I’m going to miss James, and what about you, darling?—and now Sebastian.
Tilly rubbed her eyes before opening them, but the scene in the sky hadn’t improved. “Yup. James is gone, vamoosed.” She waved an arm in a dramatic swoop. It hung in the air for a moment before dropping to her lap, where it lay as inert as a bag of potting soil. Definitely blottoed, then. “Left on a jet plane never to return. Happy?” Would her legs buckle if she tried to stand?
“Extremely.” An impish grin flickered on Sebastian’s lips.
Tilly smiled, a Pavlovian response to his beauty, but inside she cried. Sebastian might be happy, but she wasn’t. Far from it. She leaned forward, waiting for him to drag his chair up to hers, then slumped back, shocked to realize she had anticipated the movement James would have made. As if to ram home the point, Sebastian positioned his chair a good eighteen inches away and sat heavily. He crossed his legs and his arms and said nothing. Which was a blessing that gave her less to focus on.
The church bells clashed through the first peal of Friday night bell ringing practice. Jeez, they were loud, but not loud enough to drown out the babble of thoughts, all variations on a theme: Where was James? Was he over the graveyard of the Titanic or halfway down the Eastern seaboard? This was sooooo not good. Unwanted thoughts, very unwanted thoughts. What would James tell her to do? Let them drift away, like clouds floating across the sky. She looked up again. Same old clouds hanging around, looking nine months pregnant.
The blackbird tuned up for his evening serenade, swallows dipped and circled overhead and soil shot from under the hedge as Monty excavated another carcass. The garden was fresh with the smell of rain and Tilly inhaled deeply, desperate to harvest the memory. But the buzz of happiness sputtered and died, crushed by the cold realization that Woodend would never be a Haddington stronghold again. The garden, th
e furniture, the decor, all would be unrecognizable. Oh God, she and Sebastian could end up having sex in her parents’ bedroom one day.
“Isaac likes nature, doesn’t he?” Sebastian bent down and picked up a dead peacock butterfly, which he placed on the table between them. “I think I’ll frame this for him. I’ve just emptied a ton of photo frames.”
“Throwing away pics of Fiona?” Tilly lacked the mental wherewithal for marriage guidance, but she raised her eyebrows in what she hoped was an encouraging gesture. Now and again you had to be a passenger in the conversation, especially if you were the drunk girl.
“All but one that I’ve kept for the children’s sake.” Sebastian sighed. “I couldn’t decide who James was after—you or Rowena.”
“He came here to hire me, Sebastian. End of story.” If she repeated it enough, she might believe it. And she needed to believe it so that Sebastian would. James had been banging on about truth, but truth was overrated. Why torture Sebastian with it? One of them was in alcohol-induced purgatory; that was enough. She really shouldn’t have had that second gin. Or the third one that tasted like paint stripper because she couldn’t leave a dribble in the bottom of the bottle.
Sebastian uncrossed and recrossed his legs. “I realize you’re a talented gardener, but if you’re moving back to England, shouldn’t you consider returning to publicity? After all, your earning potential would be far greater.”
This was what happened when she let Sebastian steer the conversation. They jumped from dead butterflies to ex-wives to James to free financial advice. The guy was firing conversational blanks. What did he really want to say? Goddess divine, come back to me?
The Unfinished Garden Page 28