"You needn't leave because of me. I have to get home now in any case. But tell me, do you live here?" She shook her head slowly, unpinned her hair, and looked up at him. He was very good-looking.
"No, I'm a houseguest."
"Really? So am I." He mentioned the name of the people he was staying with, but she didn't recall having heard Aunt Beth mention them. "Will you be down here long?"
"A few days. Then I'll have to get back."
"To?" He was very inquisitive. Almost annoyingly so, except that he was so damned good-looking.
"San Francisco. I live there." She had avoided the next question, and now it was her turn. Why not? "And you?" The idea of questioning him amused her.
"I live in Los Angeles. But I'll be moving to San Francisco within the month, actually." She almost giggled as she listened to him. He sounded like all the imitations she'd ever heard of stuffy Englishmen. He was sooo British, standing there on a hilltop in his impeccable riding habit and flicking a riding crop across his palm. He was really quite something.
"Did I say something funny?"
"No, sir." With a half smile, she started up the hill toward him. Her horse was tied quite close to where he stood.
"My firm is transferring me to San Francisco. I came out from London three years ago, and I've had enough of L.A."
"You'll like San Francisco; it's a wonderful town." It was a totally mad conversation between two strangers in the middle of nowhere; they were behaving as though they were on Fifth Avenue, or Union Street, or the Faubourg St. Honore. She burst into laughter as she found herself standing next to him.
"I seem to have a way of amusing you without intending too."
She smiled again and shrugged gently. "Lots of things do that."
"I see." He held out a hand to her then and looked rather solemn, but the smile still danced in his eyes. "How do you do? I'm Geoffrey Bates."
"Hello. I'm Jessica Clarke." Standing under the tree, they shook hands and she smiled at him again. At close range, he didn't look quite so much like Ian. But he was very pretty in his own right, Mr. Geoffrey Bates from London. And he was thinking how much he liked the way she looked when she smiled. And she seemed as though she did that a lot.
He hesitated for a moment before asking her the next question, but he finally gave in. He wanted to know.
"Where are you staying, by the way?" By the way? It made Jessica smile again and then laugh.
"With the mother of a friend." She was vague, and he smiled as he raised an eyebrow.
"And you won't tell me who? I promise not to disgrace you and appear uninvited to dinner."
She laughed back and felt silly, but the Englishman's face had grown serious. He had just realized that she might well be traveling with a man. That would be awkward. He had looked at her left hand almost instantly and been relieved to see it bare of rings, especially plain gold ones. But he hadn't look closely enough to see the little worn ridge or the slightly paler strip where she had worn her wedding band for seven years before removing it a few months before.
"I'm staying with Mrs. Bethanie Williams."
"I believe I've heard someone mention her name." He looked enormously relieved. "Leg up?" She was standing next to her horse as he asked, and she turned to him with a look of amusement.
"Hardly. But should I say yes?" She thought she saw him blush as she swung easily into the saddle. It was a foolish question to ask someone as tall as she was, but then she noticed his height. He was at least four or five inches taller than Ian ... six five? Six six? Not even Ian was that tall ... "not even" ... why did she still think of him that way? As though he were the ultimate man. The paragon of perfection to which all other men would always be compared, in her mind.
"May I call you at Mrs. Williams'?" Jessica nodded, cautious again. This was certainly an unusual way to meet a man, and she really had no idea who or what he was.
"I won't be here for very long."
"Then I'll have to call you soon, won't I?" Persistent bastard, aren't you? She smiled again, wondering. But he didn't look like a bastard. He looked like a nice man. Somewhere in his mid-thirties, with gentle gray eyes and soft silky hair. And the clothes he wore looked expensive. He was also wearing a small gold ring on the smallest finger of his right hand; she thought she could see a crest etched into the gold, but she didn't want to stare. Everything about him looked formal and elegant. With his jodhpurs he was wearing polished black boots and a soft blue shirt with a stock. His fawn-colored tweed jacket hung from a branch and he looked a bit odd in the rugged setting, but at the same time incredibly beautiful. Better and better as she watched him. Which was precisely how he felt about her, although Jessica had begun to wonder how disheveled her hair looked.
"Nice to meet you." She prepared to ride off with a smile and a wave.
"You didn't answer my question." He held her horse's bridle as he watched Jessica's eyes. She knew what he meant. And she liked his style.
"Yes. You can call me." He stepped back in silence and, with a dazzling smile, swept her a bow. She liked that about him too. His smile. And she laughed to herself as she rode off toward the ranch.
Chapter 31
"Have a nice ride, dear?"
"Very. And I met a very strange man."
"Really? Who?" Aunt Beth looked intrigued. Strange men were few and far between around the ranch, except an odd foreman here and there.
"He's someone's houseguest, and terribly British. But he's also very nice-looking."
Aunt Beth smiled at the look on her face. "Well, well. A tall, dark, handsome stranger on my ranch? Good heavens! Where is he? And how old?"
Jessica giggled. "I saw him first. And besides, he's not dark. He's blond, and a lot taller than I am."
"Then he's yours, my dear. I never did like tall men."
"I adore them."
Aunt Beth looked over the top of her reading glasses with careful solemnity. "You haven't much choice." They both laughed again and enjoyed a blazing sunset over the hills.
It was another peaceful evening, and Jessica was up at seven the next day. She had a craving to wander, but this time not on the chestnut mare. She made herself a cup of coffee--for once up before Aunt Beth was--and took off as quietly as she could in the Morgan. She had never driven much around there, and she had been itching to explore.
The sun was high in the sky when she found it. And it was in very sad shape. But it was a beauty. It looked as though someone had lost it in the tall grass and then tired of looking for it, decades before. And now there it sat, alone and unloved, with a FOR RENT sign listing badly to one side just beyond the front steps. It was a small but perfectly proportioned Victorian house. She tried the front door, but it was locked. And Jessica found herself sitting on the front steps, fanning her face with her large-brimmed straw hat, smiling. She wasn't sure why, but she felt good. And incredibly happy.
She drove home at fifty on the dusty country road and strode into the house with a grin. Aunt Beth was checking her mail and looked up, surprised.
"Well, where have you been? You left awfully early." There was mischief in the old woman's blue eyes, and delighted suspicion.
"Wait till you hear what I've found!"
"Another man on my land? And this time a Frenchman! I knew it. Dear girl, you're having delusions from the sun." Aunt Beth clucked sympathetically and Jessica burst into laughter and tossed her hat high in the air.
"No, not a man! Aunt Beth, it's a house! An incredible, beautiful, marvelous, Victorian house! And I'm madly in love with it."
"Oh God, Jessie, not the one I think it is? The old Wheeling house out the North Road?" She knew exactly which one.
"I haven't the vaguest idea, I just know that I love it."
"And you've bought it, and your decorator is due in from New York first thing tomorrow morning." Aunt Beth refused to be serious.
"No. I mean it. It's lovely. Did you ever stand back and look at it? I did, for an hour this morning, and I sat on the
front steps for almost as long. What's it like inside? It was locked, dammit I even tried all the windows."
"God only knows what it looks like inside. No one's lived in it for almost fifteen years. Actually, it used to be very lovely, but it hasn't much land, so no one will buy it. You could probably get more land with it now, though, because the Parkers behind there just decided that they want to sell off a very nice parcel. Almost forty acres, if I remember correctly. But as far as I know, the Wheeling place just sits there empty. Year after year. The realty people showed it to me when I came down to buy the ranch, but I had no interest in the place. Too much house, too little land, and I wanted something more modern. Why on earth would you want a Victorian house out in the middle of nowhere?"
"But Aunt Beth, it's so beautiful!" Jessica looked young and romantic as she smiled at her friend.
"Ah, the illusions of youth. Maybe you have to be young and in love to want a house like that. I wanted something more practical-looking. But I can see why you liked it." She was noticing the brightness in her young friend's green eyes. "Jessica, what exactly do you have in mind?" Her voice was quiet and serious now.
"I don't know yet. But I'm thinking. About a lot of different things. Maybe they're all crazy ideas, but something's brewing." Jessica looked decidedly pleased with herself. It had been a marvelous morning, and something wonderful had happened in her head or her heart, she wasn't sure which, but she felt alive and excited and brand new again. It was crazy, really. A Bible passage that she had once learned in Sunday school had come to mind as she sat looking at the house. "Behold, old things are passed away. All things are become new." She had kept thinking of that, and she knew it was true. All the old things were drifting out of her life ... even the horror of the trial... even Ian ...
"Well, Jessie, let me know what you come up with when everything's 'brewed.' Or before that, if I can help."
"Not just yet. But maybe later." Aunt Beth nodded and went back to her mail and Jessie headed up the stairs, humming to herself. And then she stopped and looked back at Aunt Beth. "How would I go about seeing the inside of that house?"
"Call the realtors. They'll be thrilled. I don't suppose they get to show the place more than once every five years. Just look them up in the book. Hoover County Realty. Terribly original name." Aunt Beth was beginning to wonder ... but she couldn't take Jessie seriously. This must be a passing fancy, a mood. But it would keep Jessie amused. Just thinking of something other than her own boredom would do her good. One thing was certain--she hadn't looked bored when she'd come in. Not that morning. And certainly not the evening before.
Geoffrey Bates telephoned that afternoon while Jessie was out, and he called again around five, just when she got back. He politely inquired if he could "come around" for a drink, or bring her over to meet the people where he was staying. Jessie opted to have him for drinks at Aunt Beth's. And she was in high spirits.
He was terribly charming, very amusing, very proper, and quite taken with Aunt Beth, which pleased Jessie. But he was even more taken with Jessie, which pleased Beth. He looked even more splendid than Jessie had warned, in a blazer and ivory gabardine slacks, a Wedgewood blue shirt, and a navy ascot at his neck. Terribly elegant, but also very appealing. And they made a spectacular couple, both tall and blond, with a natural grace. They would have turned heads anywhere, just as they looked sitting easily in the living room at the ranch.
"I rode the hills in search of you today, Jessica, and all in vain. Where were you hiding?"
"In a house with a bathtub four feet deep and a kitchen straight out of a museum."
"Playing Goldilocks, I presume. Did the three bears come home before you left, and how was the porridge?"
"Delightful." She laughed at him and blushed slightly when he reached for her hand. But he held it for only a second.
"I thought you were an apparition yesterday on the hills. You looked like a goddess."
"Aunt Beth accused me of delusions from the sun."
"Yes, but she didn't think she'd seen a god, at least." Aunt Beth cut him down to size just to see how he'd take it, but he took it well. He was very gracious, and left them shortly before dinner, having invited them both to join him at his hosts' for lunch the next day. Aunt Beth excused herself on the grounds that she would have business to attend to on the ranch, but Jessica accepted with pleasure. He drove off in a chocolate brown Porsche, and Jessica looked up with a girlish gleam in her eyes.
"Well, what do you think?" "Too tall by far." Aunt Beth tried to look stern, but instantly failed as her face broke into a grin. "But otherwise, I heartily approve. He's perfectly lovely, Jessica! Simply lovely." Aunt Beth sounded almost as excited as Jessie herself felt. She was trying to fight it, but with difficulty.
"He is nice, isn't he?" She looked dreamy for a moment and then pirouetted on one foot. "But he's not as nice as my house."
"Jessica, you confuse me! I'm too old for such games! What house? And how dare you compare a man like that to a house?"
"Easily, because I'm mean. And I'm talking about my house. The one. I rented today, for the whole summer!"
Aunt Beth's face grew serious at the news. "You rented the Wheeling house for the summer, Jessica?"
"Yes. And if I like it, I'll stay longer. Aunt Beth, I'm happy down here, and you were right, it is time for a change."
"Yes, child. But to something like this? This is a life for an old woman, not for you. You can't lock yourself up in the country. Who will you talk to? What will you do?"
"I'll talk to you, and I'll start to paint again. I haven't done that in years, and I love it. I might even paint you."
"Jessica, Jessica! Always so flighty! You worry me at times. Last time you leapt to your feet and ran home to get a divorce, and now what are you doing? Please, dear, think this over with care."
"I have, and I am, and I will. I only rented it for the summer. And we'll see after that. It's not a permanent move. I'll try it. The only permanent decision I've come to is to sell the shop."
"Good God, you have been busy. Are you sure about all this?" Aunt Beth was more than slightly taken aback. She'd suggested selling the shop, but she hadn't thought Jessica would take her seriously. What had she done?
"I'm absolutely sure. I'm going to sell Lady J to Astrid, or offer it to her, anyway, when I go back."
"And she'll buy it. You can be sure of that, Jessica. I can't say I'm sorry. I think it would be good for her. But won't you be sorry? The boutique seems to mean a lot to you, dear."
"It did, but it's a part of the past now. A part I have to get rid of. I don't think I'll regret it."
"I hope not." There was a change in the air again; they both sensed it. But for the first time in a long time, Jessie felt alive, and not in the least bored.
"Is the house livable?"
"More or less, with a good scrub. A very good scrub."
"What will you do about furniture?"
"Live in a sleeping bag." She didn't look at all perturbed.
"Don't be ridiculous. I have some spare furniture out in the shed, and more in the attic. Help yourself. At least you'll be comfortable."
"And happy."
"Jessie ... I hope so. And please try not to do anything major too quickly. Take your time. Think. Weigh your decisions."
"Is that what you do?"
Aunt Beth couldn't stifle her mirth at the question. "No. But it's the sort of advice old women are supposed to give young girls. I always rush in and do what I want, and mend fences later. And to tell you the truth, I'll love having you down here for the summer." The older woman smiled gently and Jessica grew pensive.
"And what if I stay after the summer?"
"Oh, I'll close my doors to you and shoot at you from the kitchen windows. What do you suppose I'd do? Be delighted, of course. But I won't encourage you to move down here for my sake. I don't even do that to Astrid." But she didn't really think Jessie would move down; by the end of the summer she'd be tired of the lack of exci
tement ... and the Englishman who was moving to San Francisco looked very promising.
He came to take Jessie to lunch the next day, and she returned to Aunt Beth's in high spirits. She had liked his friends, and they had been delighted at the prospect of her moving down for the summer, and had extended an invitation to drop in on them anytime she liked. They were a couple in their fifties who invited friends up often from L.A. Geoffrey was among them ...
"I see I'm going to be spending a lot of time here this summer," he'd said.
"Oh?"
"Yes, and it's a damn long drive down from San Francisco. You could have picked someplace closer for your summer haunt, Jessica." She had not yet mentioned to him that she was thinking of moving down for good. She'd laughed up into his eyes as he'd handed her out of his car at Aunt Beth's. "Speaking of which, Miss Clarke, when are you going back to the city?"
"Tomorrow." But the "Miss" Clarke had unnerved her ... Miss? It had sounded so strange. So ... so empty.
"I'm going back to L.A. tomorrow too. But as a matter of fact--" he'd looked down at her almost slyly, and definitely pleased with himself--"I'm planning to be in San Francisco on Wednesday. How about dinner?"
"I'd love it."
"So would I." He'd looked surprisingly serious as they'd walked toward the house, and he'd quietly slipped his hand around hers.
Chapter 32
Astrid was stunned by Jessica's offer, but she leapt at the idea. She had wanted to buy the boutique since the first time she'd seen it.
"But are you sure?"
"Positive. Take it. I'll give you an idea of what the inventory's worth, talk to my attorney, and we'll come up with a price." She spoke to Philip Wald and two days later they set a price. Astrid didn't hesitate.
Now and Forever (1978) Page 33