by Ella Carey
Leon moved to go out. “I’m so glad you had a good time last night. And Tess?” he went on.
The smile she gave him was so tight it hurt.
“Thank you for being such a good sport about Alec and James. I appreciate it. You’ve done well. Don’t let anyone tell you anything different. See you in the boardroom in five minutes.”
Tess turned to her water jug and poured herself a big glass.
A few moments later, she sat surrounded by the usual array of suits.
“So,” Leon said, “I want to confirm plans for next week.”
Tess picked up her pen. She’d decided to hit Edward with it straight. Tell him how it was. There seemed to be no other way forward with him. If he wanted authenticity, then he needed to get in the real world . . .
“James and I, as many of you know, will be in Rome for the week.”
Tess’s head shot up like a bullet. She grabbed the side of her leather chair. Rome. She racked her brain. Of course. The Festival Internazionale di Letteratura.
James and Leon going to Italy now?
Edward lived in Rome.
A meeting here in the boardroom. Good place for an announcement. No chance of a tantrum from poor old Tess. Excellent. She fought the urge to yell at them both.
Ten minutes later, the meeting was done, Leon having successfully engineered people to take over where necessary when he was away for the week. All the plans were in place. Tess wasn’t even on the page. Again.
She stood up, dragged herself to her office, closed her glass door, sat down in her swiveling chair, turned a spin in it, and leaned heavily on her desk. She was going to think this one through. Not give them the reaction they expected. Not this time.
So, James could hardly not have known he was going to Rome, say, two days ago when he took her to his father’s apartment. And last night, when he spoke with her at the ball? He just hadn’t seen fit to mention it. His tactics were astounding.
Tess buttoned up her suit jacket and made her way down the corridor to Leon’s office. Leon was at his desk. On the phone. Tess waited outside the glass wall, her head filled with plans.
“Come in, Tess.” Leon stood up once he was finished and opened his door.
“Leon,” she said, “can we talk for a few moments?”
Leon stepped aside.
Tess bumped into the chair in front of his desk, righting it a split second before it toppled to the ground.
“What can I do for you?”
Tess winced at her clumsiness. “You see,” she said. There was no other way. She had to do it. “I need to tell you something about Edward’s novel.”
Leon picked up a pen, started shuffling papers.
“It’s autobiographical.”
Leon looked up and put the pen down.
She had him.
“Go on,” he said, his voice dropping a few decibels.
“The love story in the book is based on a young man who is also called Edward—an unusual setup in itself. I’d been reading, wondering myself what was going on and why he’d done that, but then it turns out that the love interest in the book is based on a real artist called Rebecca Swift. I’ve found out that Rebecca Swift was a talented art student who drowned in 1946. Rebecca’s death was something of a loss to the art world in her country. But Edward has mentioned nothing to me about his novel being based on a true story.”
Leon stayed quiet.
“The famous Australian art patron, Sunday Reed—although she’s more than an art patron, she supported artists all her life—organized an exhibition of Rebecca’s work soon after Rebecca died. Apart from that, Rebecca’s story has been lost. Her work is hidden away at Heide, the Reeds’ famous home. Leon, I want to talk to Edward about the possibility of his releasing the true story behind the novel to the world to coincide with the release of the book. Talk shows, you know the drill. But he’s very into, well, avoiding anything commercial.”
Leon slid his chair closer to the desk. “You want to approach him with care.”
“Absolutely. Which is why I haven’t rushed in yet. But the thing is, I think it would be better to approach him in person.”
“You want to go to Rome. Tess—”
“Yes. I do. I need to come too. I’d like to be at the Festival; that’s one thing. But I have to talk to Edward in person. It’s not going to work on the phone. He has these ideas that are so stringent, and if I can just spend some time with him, have a chance to explain the benefits of publicity . . . then that’s in all our best interests, including his.”
Leon began shuffling through a pile of papers on his desk.
Come on, Tess thought. This will benefit you, Leon.
Leon looked up. “What sort of chance do you think you have? Can you convince him?”
“Yes,” Tess said, lifting up her chin. “I’m extremely determined to do so. But I have to give it the best chance I can. And I can’t do that from New York.”
Leon peered at his notes. “How would you feel about James approaching Edward on your behalf? I want him to go, because the Festival is right up his alley. It’s what he does.”
Tess forced herself not to state the obvious. Instead she said, “Leon, if we send James, what sort of message is that giving to Edward?”
Leon tapped a few numbers into a calculator with his pristine white fingertips.
He doesn’t do any housework, Tess thought. Fingers were immaculate. No gardening. Doubt he liked getting his hands into the soil like Edward did. Why was she surprised?
“Leon,” she said. “You wanted me to have the opportunity to work with Edward. You and I both know what I did for Alec’s career. You have to trust me to deal with Edward Russell on my own and have faith that I can and will make his novel a bestseller. It’s what I do.”
Leon inspected the mess of papers on his desk. “Well.” He let out a sigh. “I don’t need a trip to Rome right now, to be perfectly honest. I’m snowed under, and I’m just not wanting to be . . . away from things . . . for a week.”
Tess waited.
Leon shook his head. “Look, Tess, if you were to take my place and go instead, then the deal is that you have to convince Russell to work with us, not against us. I heard he was messing around with deadlines from the marketing department. If he doesn’t want to be professional, I don’t know that we’ll be able to publish him after all. Do you see what I’m saying?”
“Crystal clear.” But a stone fell into Tess’s stomach. If Edward were dropped, then where would that leave her? She pushed away her annoyance toward James. “I’m determined to convince him, to alter his stance,” she said. “Ideals are all very well, but you have to know where to draw the line with them.”
When Leon spoke, his voice was a little shaky with relief. “I have to tell you I was going to be in great trouble with my son if I went away next week. He’s performing in a play . . .”
“You won’t want to miss that.” Tess smiled at her boss.
“No. I hadn’t told him I was going away. I hadn’t told Tania either . . .”
Maybe she had things a little wrong about Leon. Maybe Tania was not so . . . perfect after all.
Leon’s phone rang. “I’ll have Alice see to the changes. There’ll be a cost involved, but to be honest, Tess, it sounds like the company is better off absorbing that than risking Edward’s book not reaching its full potential. I look forward to hearing how you get on.”
He picked up the phone.
“Thank you,” Tess mouthed.
He waved at her, frowning at the next problem he had to face.
Tess moved out of the room, turned into the corridor, and refrained, but only just, from punching the air. The moment she had confirmation that her tickets were sorted, she picked up her phone and dialed Rome.
“Edward,” she said, “I’m sorry that we got off to a bad start. I was wondering if we could meet next week? I will be in Rome for the Literature Festival. I’m sorry if I came across as a little abrupt during our last phone ca
ll.”
“No.” He sounded implacable.
Tess drooped down in her seat.
“It’s me who needs to apologize.”
She brought her hand up to her mouth.
“Let’s have dinner while you’re here. And Tess?”
“I’m here.”
“The answer’s simple. We need to meet each other halfway.”
Tess blew out a breath. “I agree. I think your book is going to be wonderful. I’m loving it. In fact, I know it’s going to be great.”
There was a silence down the phone. “We’ll organize where to meet when you get here. Have a safe flight.”
“Thank you.” Tess felt the itch of her conscience once she’d hung up. She needed him to exploit himself, his family, and Rebecca in public, with the media.
Did that make her any better than James?
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Haslemere, 1946
The horizon beyond the endless paddocks was stained a deep pink. Rebecca leaned against the fence at the edge of the old stable yard. She could not help but imagine the whispers and rustles that would fill the landscape overnight; snakes, possums, and mopokes would take over the paddocks while everyone in the grand old house slept.
It was the landscape that had drawn her in out here, so uniquely Australian, vast and beautiful and wild all at once. As darkness fell across Haslemere, she should have been seated at her dressing table and looking at her three-tiered mirror, being attended to by the maid. Instead, she’d found herself drawn not only to the ancient landscape but to the garden with its secret paths and the vast old mansion, where she sensed ghosts of generations past, of the women who’d married into the Russell family, living in such opulence as to have a steamship of their own. The endless, grand rooms fascinated her. She’d poked her head into the vast farmhouse kitchen, then gone in, as it was empty. Glancing into the servants’ small living room that led to their bedrooms and the laundry, she thought of all the lives spent here in service, while the family lived in splendid grandeur.
Rebecca turned back from gazing at the endless sky. She wandered through the quiet stable yard, opening the chipped green wooden door set in the old stone wall that she and Edward had taken when they left the garden, wandering back toward the roses that glistened in the dim light. She passed the aviary, big enough to house tall trees, and the conservatory with its tropical plants.
Rebecca made her way past the tennis court, its sagging net sitting as if waiting for someone, anyone, to play a game again. Beyond the tennis court, there was a folly, a tower that apparently Edward’s grandfather used to sit in while watching games of tennis in the station’s heyday when the house had been full of guests. So, where to with all this? How would Edward’s legacy marry with his modernist views?
And that begged the next question—unless someone with a slew of both determination and money took these old places on, what was going to become of these wonderful reminders of the past? How was all the hard work of previous generations and the lifestyle that these mansions demanded supposed to ring true with the generation who had just been through the war? No one wanted to work in service any more. Clare seemed an aberration to Rebecca.
Rebecca stopped by a wall that crumbled, the old sandstone tumbling to the earth in places. What Edward wanted was not going to be simple. She only hoped his dreams—which by now were intertwined with her own—were not going to be impossible in the end. She turned back to the house, wandering through darkness now.
She went into the front door, passing through the long gallery, past the library, greeting Clare and entering her bedroom. She still had an hour or so before dinner, so she sat down, pulled out the cartridge paper that she had brought from her tiny studio in Melbourne, and began to sketch.
Rebecca stood at the doorway to the library precisely at eight p.m. The family was grouped around the fireplace and a waiter in black tie handed around drinks on a silver tray. But that was not what caused Rebecca to come to a standstill. It was the unexpected guest. A sense of panic rose; her outfit was all wrong. The black dress she’d chosen was a castoff from the store where her mother worked. It had a slight defect in the bodice, but no one would know except Mrs. Swift. Rebecca ran her hands over the flared skirt, wishing now that it fell to her feet in elegant cascades like the dress that the stranger wore as she stood laughing with Edward’s mother in the center of the family circle.
And it was at that instant, at that moment, that the girl turned around, along with Celia, whose face was flushed with delight. Their laughter stopped as their eyes landed on Rebecca, who felt acutely the way in which the other girl eyed her simple black dress up and down. But then the beautiful girl, and she was undeniably beautiful, made her way across the room, a smile lighting up her elegant features—wide smile, warm green eyes, blond hair swept back from her tanned complexion as if it were the most effortless hairdo in the world. Her long pale gold dress swished on the carpet and she wore black gloves.
Where was she off to? A ball?
She held out her hand to take Rebecca’s, clasping it, smiling into Rebecca’s eyes.
“I’m Edith,” she said. “Any friend of Edward’s is always a friend of mine. Charming to meet you. Johnson?” she went on, to the butler who hovered with drinks. “Come and bring Rebecca a drink.”
Rebecca felt her eyes widen at the way the girl seemed to be running the party.
Edward extracted himself from a conversation with a young man who was an older version of himself—clearly his brother, Robert—and made his way across the room.
“Rebecca,” he said. “Sorry. I was just about to introduce you. This is Edith. An old family friend.”
Celia wafted over in oyster silk. “An old family friend?” Celia chided Edward. “Well. That’s a funny way of saying she’s very important to us all.”
An odd expression passed across Edward’s face.
“Edward and Edith have known each other since they were very young,” Celia said. “Edith’s family owns another station, a little way up the road. Her mother, Elspeth, is my oldest, dearest friend.”
“We’re a-hundred-miles-away neighbors.” Edith laughed.
Edward chuckled.
“Well put.” An older man appeared next to Rebecca. He dangled a cigarette from one hand and held a glass of red wine in the other, but Rebecca started at the smell of whiskey that emanated from him. “What are we all standing around the door for?” he asked.
“Good point, Angus!” Edith laughed. “Let’s move back to the fireplace.”
Rebecca’s chest started to thump, but what was she supposed to do? She had little choice but to follow the other girl’s lead. Little choice but to be entranced by her along with every other member of Edward’s family, it seemed. And Edward? What did he think of the beautiful girl in their midst? Edith seemed to have a glow around her, a certain something that was hard to define.
Although, if she were honest with herself, Rebecca knew what it was. It was class. Upper-class confidence. There had been several girls with this effortless panache at the small private girls’ school that Rebecca had attended in Melbourne. Her mother had insisted on sacrificing other things to pay the fees so that Rebecca would meet the right sort of people. But she knew that at some of the more famous girls’ schools, Edith’s behavior was de rigueur. Ironically, her mother would approve of her relationship with Edward . . .
Rebecca clutched her champagne glass. The thought of swallowing the acidic drink turned her stomach into a swirl.
“Father, Robert, this is my friend Rebecca Swift,” Edward announced. He’d adopted his stance by the fireplace again. Rebecca smiled at the two men who flanked Celia. On closer inspection, she noticed the telltale bloodshot red of Robert’s eyes and the way his hand shook slightly rather than resting calmly by his side as Edward’s did.
“Good to meet you, Rebecca.” Angus’s voice was liquid, murky with alcohol. “Welcome to Haslemere.”
Rebecca saw the way Edward’s father
’s eyes darted to Celia. Was it panic that she noticed in his glance?
“Thank you.” She couldn’t find any other words to say.
“I’ve always loved this room,” Edith said. “It’s my favorite at dear Haslemere.”
“Edith comes here to ride regularly,” Celia said to Rebecca, as if she were explaining how things worked to a young child. “We hold the hunts here. Edith’s a terrific horsewoman. Do you ride, Rebecca?” she asked.
The only horse experience Rebecca had ever endured was with a pony when she was eight years old. It was on a farm where her family had gone for a holiday, a rare event, which was painful for them all. The pony had chased Rebecca around the paddock, determined to bite her. Rebecca had been the smallest one there and the pony had taken exception to her. She had avoided anything equine ever since.
“I confess I don’t ride,” she said.
“Vicky and Edith will be going out in the morning. You should join them. They are both excellent horsewomen and could teach you in no time at all.”
“That is, if you’re interested,” Edith said, her eyes sparkling.
The warmth in the girl’s expression seemed genuine, that was the strange thing. If Rebecca’s instincts were right, Edith wasn’t making fun of Rebecca or looking down at her in any way at all.
“We’ll see,” Edward said. “Rebecca’s a talented artist. She loves to draw. In the morning she and I might go for a walk.”
Rebecca shot at look at Edith, and saw a flame of embarrassment rise on the other girl’s cheeks. And suddenly, Rebecca fought with empathy for this girl. Was she in love with Edward? Rebecca hardly knew what to think.
Dinner was announced.
As they all proceeded to the dining room, Rebecca took the opportunity to gather her thoughts. To adjust to the newcomer. Had Celia invited Edith as competition for Rebecca?
When she sat down at the cedar dining table, Rebecca felt as if she had landed in some grand old English estate. The room’s deep red wallpaper was imposing, but at the same time, it closed in on the room. The polished table gleamed with silver cutlery and porcelain plates that were monogrammed with the family crest. Edward’s father, oddly, had a packet of Bournville dark chocolate open on the table beside him. Rebecca wondered if he ate this to hide the smell of whiskey on his breath. And was reminded of her own father, who used to keep peppermint chocolates for exactly that reason himself. Oddly, now, in spite of the grand surroundings, she felt strangely at home with his behavior.