‘Yes, but that was a while ago now.’
‘Well, if you’d rather not see it . . .’ Jay said, blocking her way.
‘Silly!’ she said, batting his arm and then pushing him firmly aside before taking a look at the canvas. She tipped her head first one way and then the other.
‘Well?’ Jay said, seemingly impatient for her response.
‘You’ve made me look like . . . like . . .’
‘An angel?’
‘I don’t know about that. An angel in the house, perhaps.’
‘What?’
‘The angel in the house,’ she said again. ‘It was the Victorian notion of the ideal woman – one who was submissive to the men around her, who knew her place in the patriarchal world. The term comes from a poem by Coventry Patmore, but you’ll be more familiar with her portrayal in the art of the time. A lot of the Pre-Raphaelite artists portrayed her trapped in a room or framed by a window. That’s what you’ve done to me here.’
Jay took a step towards her.
‘Yes, but you’re looking outside, aren’t you? You’re looking out of the window and beyond the garden walls.’
Emilia looked at the portrait again, at the slightly melancholic look on her face, but also at the dazzling light he’d caught in her eyes. Was it the light of optimism, perhaps, as if she was looking into her own future and a life outside Morton Hall? A life that saw her as Jay’s wife and a mother?
Instinctively, her hand flew to her stomach, reminding her that she hadn’t yet told Jay that she was pregnant. Today, she told herself. She would tell him today.
‘So, do you like it?’ Jay whispered in her ear. ‘Because I think my heart would break if you didn’t.’
She smiled at him. ‘I love it,’ she said.
‘Yeah?’
‘Yes.’
He leaned forward and kissed her.
‘The question is, will Tobias like it?’ she said.
‘Only one way to find out. I’ll go and get him.’
‘Want me to come with you?’
‘No. You wait here,’ he said.
‘You know which his room is?’
‘The one with the locked door? I know it.’
‘Or he might be in the study downstairs.’
‘I’ll check both.’
Emilia walked over to the window as Jay left. It would be strange not to have to stand there anymore, looking out. They’d spent so many hours in this space together in companionable silence as Jay had worked and now that was over. The painting was done and she would no longer have to wear the beautiful midnight-blue dress.
‘Well, you’ve taken your time about it,’ Tobias said as he came into the room a moment later.
‘As you’ll see, it’s life-size, as requested.’
Emilia turned around as her brother took in the portrait for the first time, his dark eyes narrowed. She swallowed hard as he looked up from the canvas to where she was standing by the window.
‘You’ve caught her,’ he said, his eyes glancing down at the painting again. ‘Absolutely.’
‘Good. Good,’ Jay said, nodding. ‘Then, you’re pleased with it?’
There was a pause and Emilia looked at Jay’s face as he awaited the approval of his patron. She’d never seen him anything but confident, yet here he was – the anxious artist, worrying that his work might not be good enough.
‘I am.’
Emilia watched as her brother held out a folded cheque to Jay.
‘Wow!’ Jay said with undisguised glee as he looked at it. ‘This is more than we agreed.’
Tobias nodded. ‘You’ve done a good job.’
‘But you wrote this out before you’d seen the portrait.’
‘I trusted you.’
The two men stared at one another and Emilia wondered if Tobias would shake his hand, perhaps, or offer him a drink. Maybe they’d become friends – real friends this time – and then she could tell him, tell them both, about the baby. They could become a family together and fill Morton Hall with—
Before she could finish her flight of fantasy, Tobias cleared his throat.
‘You’d better say your goodbyes. I expect you’ll want an hour or so to get your things together and have a spot of tea before your journey home.’ Tobias’s eyebrows rose in question, but Jay just frowned at him.
‘Yes,’ Emilia said quickly, catching Jay’s eye before he had the chance to cause a scene. ‘That’s a lovely idea.’
‘Good,’ Tobias said and he gave a funny sort of nod before leaving the room.
Jay cursed under his breath.
‘Shush!’ Emilia warned.
‘A spot of tea?’ Jay said. ‘He thinks I’ll leave quietly after a spot of bloody tea?’
Emilia reached towards him, placing her hands on his shoulders. ‘Calm down.’
‘How can I be calm? Your brother’s throwing me out or hadn’t you noticed?’ He shook his head. ‘Emmy, I don’t know why we keep delaying this. We should just go. Both of us – now.’
‘What?’
‘I mean, what’s keeping you here? It’s crazy to want to stay.’
‘But I’m not ready.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I don’t want to leave Tobias just yet.’
‘You want to invite him with us? Would that make you happy?’
‘Don’t be silly.’
‘Because I’m beginning to feel jealous of your brother. He sees more of you than I do.’
‘He won’t be happy if I just up and leave.’
‘He’s got your portrait to keep him company.’
Emilia’s fingers bunched into fists. How could she explain this to Jay?
‘It’s just, I’ve got a bad feeling about this.’
‘What bad feeling?’ he asked. ‘You’re not making any sense here. I thought you wanted to get away from this place. I thought you wanted to be with me.’
‘I do, Jay.’
He picked up her left hand and turned it over to kiss the delicate skin of her wrist and that’s when he saw the bruises.
‘Jesus, Emmy. Did he do that to you?’
She pulled her hand away from him. She’d forgotten about the angry purple marks.
‘It’s nothing. It doesn’t even hurt anymore.’
Jay wasn’t appeased. ‘I want to kill him!’
‘Don’t say that.’
‘I can’t help it. It’s how he makes me feel. We’ve got to leave,’ he told her. ‘We can’t keep putting it off.’
‘I know,’ she said, ‘and we will.’
‘When?’
‘Soon.’
‘Give me a date, Emilia. Soon isn’t good enough.’
She swallowed hard. ‘I don’t know.’
‘Friday. We’re leaving Friday.’
‘Jay – that’s not enough time!’
He took her hands gently in his once again. ‘I want to be with you. I need to be with you.’
Something in her heart melted at his desperate tone and she nodded. Perhaps that would be the night to tell him her news, she thought. Yes, she’d tell him then.
‘All right. Friday it is.’
He kissed her. ‘We’ll meet in the maze at midnight.’
‘Oh, Jay!’
He grinned. ‘It’ll be the romantic adventure of your life!’
Meeting in the maze at midnight might have seemed like a wildly romantic thing to do, but the reality of it was quite different, Emilia thought as she opened her bedroom door a crack and listened. She couldn’t tell if Tobias was still up or not.
She checked her suitcase again. She’d packed only the essentials. Jay had recently bought himself a second-hand car, but it wasn’t very big. Emilia wasn’t even sure where they were going. They hadn’t talked anything through other than getting away from Morton Hall.
Tiptoeing out of her room, Emilia made her way slowly down the stairs, unbolting the great front door and letting herself out into the garden. The moon was bright and the romance of the mom
ent got the better of her, banishing her fears and putting Tobias out of her mind as she focussed on finding Jay.
She left her suitcase outside the west entrance of the maze and ventured inside. She’d been in the maze before at night, loving the deep darkness of the place, but she knew this time would be her last at Morton Hall. She hadn’t really thought about that until now. She’d never see the maze again, would she? For she instinctively knew that Tobias would want nothing more to do with her after she left like this.
Her footsteps were light and her speed picked up as she neared the centre of the maze. She could feel her heart racing and was tempted to call Jay’s name, but thought it was better to be cautious. She would be with him soon enough.
One more left and one more right and she would be in the centre: she felt sure that Jay was already there, waiting for her.
But it wasn’t Jay who was there. It was Tobias.
Cape was out in his garden one Friday afternoon pulling down a length of old trellis when he heard the phone ring from the house. At first, he thought about ignoring it, but he really couldn’t take that chance with Poppy gone and so he ran inside, grabbing the phone before the caller rang off.
It was Helena.
She cleared her throat and then said, ‘I have a message from Renee. Poppy’s flying home today.’
‘What?’ Cape blurted.
‘Renee asked me to tell you to meet her at the airport.’
‘Airport?’
‘She’s coming into Heathrow,’ Helena told him, giving him the time and details of the flight.
‘Is Renee not with her?’
There was a pause. ‘No.’
‘What do you mean, no?’
‘Renee’s in America. She’s staying.’
‘Wait a minute,’ Cape said. ‘Are you telling me she sent my daughter home alone? She’s flying across an ocean on her own?’
‘It’s all done properly, Cape. They have people to look out for kids on planes and in airports.’
He couldn’t quite believe what he was hearing. ‘But this is my kid! Nobody puts my kid on a plane on her own! For God’s sake!’
‘Don’t yell at me,’ Helena warned. ‘I’m just the mug passing on the message.’
‘I’m sorry,’ he said quickly. ‘This is just a bit of a shock.’
He heard her exhale. ‘I know.’
‘What did Renee say?’
‘Not a lot. It was more a series of instructions. She sounded stressed and I didn’t want to make things more difficult than they were.’
Cape cursed. What had Renee been thinking? Couldn’t she just have come home or, at the very least, accompanied Poppy back before returning herself? Was that really too much to ask?
‘And she said nothing else?’
‘No, nothing.’
There was an awkward silence as if they were both realising the strangeness of the situation they now found themselves in.
‘I’m on my way,’ he told her. ‘And Helena?’
‘Yes?’
‘Thanks.’
Cape wasn’t surprised that Poppy fell asleep in the car on the way home. She looked exhausted, her face drained of all colour. He’d never forget the intense anxiety he’d felt as he’d waited for her arrival at the airport, checking his watch and phone endlessly in case she was trying to call him, and keeping an eye on the predicted arrival time of her plane in case it was delayed. He’d paced the concourse, unable to sit still for even a minute. Then there was the moment when he’d seen her. He’d never forget it. How small she’d looked standing there with her brand-new suitcase. He’d run towards her, shouting her name across the crowds and scooping her up in his arms.
Now, driving across the Thames, he wanted to chuck that suitcase into the dark water. He shook his head, trying to banish the feelings of anger that were threatening to spill over. He had his girl back and that was what mattered. She was safe and he was damned sure he was going to keep her safe from now on – whatever that took.
Arriving home, he turned the engine off and turned to face her in the passenger seat.
‘Hey, Poppy Poppet,’ he said, using the nickname he’d given her when she was tiny. ‘We’re home.’
She yawned and then beamed him a smile that warmed his heart. He opened her door and took her suitcase and the two of them went inside.
‘Is it too late for tea?’ she asked.
‘Of course not. You can have whatever you want, darling.’
‘Toast with peanut butter?’
‘Coming right up.’
He watched as she climbed the stairs and he swallowed hard as the emotion he’d been bottling up threatened to surface again. Busy. He had to keep busy, and so he prepared his little girl her tea, choosing her favourite plate, which was covered in vibrant poppies, and filling a pink glass with orange juice.
‘Poppy?’ he called a few minutes later. ‘Your toast is ready.’
There was no reply so he went up the stairs, knocking gently on the bedroom door which was ajar.
‘Hey!’ he said as he saw her lying on the bed, her face hiding in a large teddy bear. ‘What’s wrong, sweetheart?’
She sniffed and pushed her hair out of her eyes before looking up.
‘I missed my room,’ she whispered. ‘I didn’t think I’d see it again.’
‘Oh, my Poppy!’ he said.
‘We were staying in this funny place that smelt bad.’
‘It smelt bad?’
‘But it had a pool.’
‘And did you swim in it?’
‘No. It was dirty all the time so I was told not to. I wasn’t even allowed to put my feet in it just a little bit.’
Cape gave a short laugh. So much for the Californian dream.
‘I kept crying, Daddy! I told Mummy I didn’t want to be there.’
‘You made her life hell, eh, baby?’
‘I think so. I wanted to be home. I missed you and I told Mummy she was mean to leave without you and that it was wrong.’ She threw her skinny arms around his neck and he buried his face in her hair, smelling that sweet smell he couldn’t live without.
‘Nothing can keep us apart anymore, I promise you,’ he told her.
She nodded, her head knocking against his neck.
A few moments passed before she spoke again.
‘She’s not coming home, is she?’
‘I don’t think so, Poppet,’ he said, and the realisation that Renee would rather give up her own daughter than her dream hit him again. ‘It’s just the two of us.’
Poppy gave a little sniff. ‘That’s all right though, isn’t it?’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘That’s all right. Now, come on downstairs for some tea.’
After she’d eaten and had returned to her room, he opened her suitcase, looking forward to putting all of her things back where they belonged. But he didn’t get that far because there was an envelope on the top of Poppy’s clothes.
Cape, it read. He picked it up and opened it.
Sending Poppy home is the hardest thing I’ll ever have to do, Renee had written. She’d still managed to do it, though, he thought bitterly.
He read on.
But I’m not going to apologise for taking her. I believe it was the right thing to do. Only, it turned out to be all wrong for Poppy. She was miserable from the moment we left home and I realised how much she is like you. She’s your girl, Cape, and she should be with you. R.
And that was it. There was no official goodbye. No explanation as to whether she’d ever return to England or if she expected or even wanted him and Poppy to join her at a later date. There was no message of love or regret over her leaving her family behind and no good wishes for their future. But what had he been expecting? Renee had never been one to explain herself – she just did whatever suited her and expected the world to move along with her. Well, he was personally glad if she was out of their lives for good now, although he was anxious and sad for the disruption it would cause Poppy. He’d known that
his relationship with Renee had been failing for some time, but it seemed strange to think that he might never hear from her again. After being a part of each other’s lives for so many years, it was remarkable to him that he felt so calm about it all.
It was a blessed relief to take Poppy with him to Morton Hall the next day. Everybody was delighted to see her. News had spread amongst the group of Poppy’s disappearance and everyone gave her a hug and welcomed her back.
It wasn’t until after lunch that Cape got to speak to Anne Marie on her own.
‘Hey,’ he said.
‘Hi. How are you?’
‘Good,’ he said. ‘Exhausted.’
‘It’s so great that Poppy’s back. What a relief for you.’
‘I picked her up at the airport yesterday.’
‘So Renee’s back?’
‘Erm, no.’
‘No?’ Anne Marie blurted. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Poppy came back on her own.’ He watched as Anne Marie’s forehead crinkled in bewilderment.
‘She flew home alone?’
‘Yep.’
‘You’re kidding me?’
‘I wish I was.’
‘Renee put her on a plane and—’
‘I still can’t believe she did that.’
‘Cape! You must’ve been furious.’
‘I went through every emotion in the book and then some.’
‘I can imagine.’ She reached out and touched his arm and their eyes met. He saw Anne Marie bite her lip as she withdrew her hand a moment later. ‘I’m so glad she’s back.’
She turned to go.
‘Anne Marie?’
‘Yes?’
‘Everything okay with you?’
She paused before answering. ‘Yes.’
‘Because we haven’t had much of a chance to talk,’ he went on. ‘Not since the night in the maze.’
‘No,’ she said, the word coming quickly and sounding sharp. ‘I mean, no, we haven’t,’ she added, a little more gently.
‘Then you’re good?’
She nodded and made a little sound in the affirmative and he watched as she walked away. He was just about to go after her and ask her more when Poppy ran across the garden towards him.
‘Daddy! Come and see the mess Matthew and Elliot have made in the greenhouse. There’s compost and gravel everywhere and Patrick’s gone all red in the face!’
The Heart of the Garden Page 27