Stephanie Barron

by The White Garden (v5)

  “You’re very cruel, you know.”

  “I was taught to be.”

  She said nothing as I went out. Not yet noon, and already Vita reaches for the sherry decanter.

  I STOOD AT THE GATE TO THE NORTH OF THE PRIEST’S HOUSE; there is a statue worth looking at, half visible from here. My arms wrapped in my cardigan. Shivering. The Little Virgin, Vita calls her. Cold as lead. Draperies swirl about her knees, coy, suggestive. She is not for touching. I wish to be dead to Leonard and Vanessa.

  The boy Jock was working in the garden—a barrow, hoe, tip basket, secateurs. Whistling. Free of war or marriage. Thinking only of green. Morning, he said. Was it still morning? He tipped his cap. Brought up to do so, I suppose, by his mother at Knole. Tip yer’ at to the lady, now, Jock, there’s a good boy. And Vita hardly aware of them as she passed, trailing scarves and scent, her lambskin gloves clutched in one hand, bent on the car waiting in the drive—

  “Fine morning,” the boy said. Polite, but cautious.

  I suppose the morning was fine. Sunlight and cold. I hugged my cardigan tighter. The crabbed claws of my hands searched for warmth. I ought to have put on my coat. I did not want to go back inside and learn what Vita was writing to them.

  “You’ve a good deal to do here,” I said neutrally.

  “That I do, ma’am. But I was bred up to it,” he replied, leaning on his hoe. “It’s a garden worth the labour—not so grand as Knole, perhaps, but more human. Her ladyship understands the way things grow. I like to learn from her, when she can spare the time. It’s a good place—provided Jerry leaves it be.”

  Jerry. Germans. The Home Guard at night.

  “Do you stand watch in the Tower?” I asked.

  He shook his head regretfully. “I’ve another year yet. Foolish, if you ask me. I’m old enough to do my bit.”

  “You’re doing it here.”

  He grinned—and with a jolt I was reminded of Thoby, the years at Cambridge, his rooms with Leonard, Vanessa and I in our white dresses, the Apostles, the boats on the River, Rupert Brooke swimming, his body a god’s but not for me; I swam like a swan with my head in the air, both of us writing poetry at that house on the riverbank. Thoby. Thoby. Who died too young and bequeathed his sisters to his friends…

  “Ma’am,” the boy was saying. “Are you all right? You’ll catch your death of cold.”

  He had abandoned the hoe and was standing before me, slightly taller than I, sturdy, a line of worry between those clear brown eyes. He almost, but not quite, reached a hand to my elbow. As he might have to his grandmother. I wanted him to touch me. I wanted Thoby’s hand on my arm.

  “I shall go in.”

  “That’s right,” he said encouragingly. “You go in, now, ma’am. The dog will go with you; she needs the warm.”

  He was talking about the Alsatian, I realised, who had fallen in a heap at my feet.

  “Not the same since that Martin went. It’s early days yet.”

  “Martin?” I repeated.

  “T’other dog. Her la’ship had to put him down, a week or so since; attacked the neighbour’s prize hound.”

  I touched the dog’s silky head; she thrust her nose into my palm.

  “Shot Martin herself, la’ship did. It fair went to her heart. That’s why I’m glad you’ve come, ma’am. She won’t take so much of that sherry, now you’re here.”

  Vita would be appalled if she knew how much this boy sees. The trailing scarves, the scent, the lambskin gloves—and yet he penetrates to the core of iron, Orlando on the battlements, shooting her dogs and keeping tight hold of her bare bodkin against the German advance. Alone and depressed in the blackout night, her decanter uncorked in South Cottage, silent except for the drone of planes.

  The great ghostly barn owl flitting over the blackened garden.

  “Come along, then,” I said gently to the inconsolable dog, who gathered herself and followed me inside.

  “EVER BEEN TO OXFORD?” PETER LLEWELLYN ASKED as they forged west through London traffic toward the M40.

  Jo was inclined to say: I’ve never been anywhere, but instead she settled for a shake of the head.

  “It sometimes disappoints. People seem to expect an Austen film. Or Brideshead. When in fact Oxford is fairly urban. Americans like Cambridge better—it suits their idea of what an English university should look like.”

  He was just making conversation, she realized; talking about anything rather than the quest that had propelled them from Sotheby’s front door. Already, Jo was regretting the impulse. She had completely abandoned Gray Westlake—who had flown six thousand miles solely to see her—and that complication, Gray in the solitary splendor of the Connaught, nagged at her. He was waiting. She should call. He was her client, for God’s sake. He had said he was falling in love with her. In love with her. No. It made no sense. Integrity, Peter Llewellyn had said; a difficult word. How did you deal honestly with a client who wanted you, body and soul? Something had to be compromised. Your business, your heart, your whole life…

  “—wonderful place not far from town,” Peter was murmuring. “You’ve heard of it, no doubt. Le Manoir aux Quat’ Saisons. Margaux and I took the cooking class with Raymond Blanc—”

  Who was Margaux?

  Who was Raymond Blanc?

  She pulled her thoughts back to the car. Time enough in Oxford to let Gray know where she was. How long could this consultation take? She’d be back in London by dinnertime. At which point she’d simply tell him: Gray, this will never work. I’m uncomfortable with the blend of business and pleasure.…Her heart somersaulted with desire and regret. Was she insane, to be pushing a man like Gray Westlake away?

  I’m not ready. She didn’t think of herself as somebody who’d steal another woman’s life. And she would never want Alicia’s life, anyway. She wanted her own. But Gray—

  “… she ought to be able to spare us an hour. Given what it might mean. For her career. As well as ours,” Llewellyn concluded.

  He glanced at Jo expectantly, and his expression changed. “I say—are you all right?”

  “I haven’t heard a word,” she told him truthfully. “You’d better start over.”

  PETER, IT SEEMED, HAD STUDIED ENGLISH LITERATURE AT A college with the odd name of Maudlin.

  “It’s spelled like the Fallen Woman in the Bible,” he explained, “but pronounced like a lapse in good taste.” From the offhand and apologetic way he described his years there, Jo concluded it was a great honor to have studied at Magdalen, and that he’d done uncommonly well. She detected, however, disappointment in Peter—that the best years of his life were behind him? That all his hard work and passion for words had ended in a desk at Sotheby’s? Books, he explained, weren’t what they used to be. Collections—the aristocratic hoard of rare first editions, lovingly bound in calf and tooled with gold, arranged on the polished shelves of spectacular libraries—were impossible for most individuals to maintain. They hadn’t the interest, Peter said. Books went to universities, or national libraries with climate-controlled, hermetically sealed chambers designed for the preservation of paper. New money, when it logged onto the bidding website at Sotheby’s, preferred to splurge on wine.

  “Burgundies,” he added gloomily. “And, of course, your subscription-only Cabernets. Can’t say I blame them. There’s nothing like a smashing glass of red.”

  The Book Expert, Jo gathered, was unhappy. And she suspected the woman named Margaux was partly to blame.

  Not that Peter would admit it. He was too careful, still, for confidences. But Jo sensed an uneasiness whenever the English professor’s name came up, as though Peter were two-stepping around a land mine. Margaux Strand. Literature don, Magdalen College. He’d known her for years, ever since they were at school together.

  “First-rate in her field, Margaux is,” he said with forced enthusiasm. “A Feminist interpreter, of course. Edits a journal on Women’s Fiction. An acknowledged Woolf expert.” They were cruising toward the Oxford skyline,
Peter pointing out the dome of the Radcliffe Camera. “Margaux will tell us whether we’ve got something explosive in your notebook—or just a bomb.”

  SHE’D PREPARED HERSELF FOR GRANDEUR—THAT WAS IMPLICIT in the idea of Oxford—but the quiet beauty of Magdalen took her completely by surprise. The college was at the end of the High Street, rising from a park that flanked the River Cherwell; a narrow bridge of Cotswold stone spanned the water, and punts lined the grassy bank. Somewhere, a bell tolled the half-hour; Jo’s watch read three-thirty. She stood by the slow-moving brown water in the still October air, mentally improving the landscape with plant substitutions of her own design, while Peter Llewellyn stabbed at his cell phone; a pair of students in their twenties strolled across Magdalen Bridge, their flutey English voices drifting toward Jo. She almost pinched herself. What was she doing there?

  “Margaux says we’re to come up.” Peter thrust his phone back in his coat pocket. His face was rather pale, Jo thought. “Her stair’s just across the quad.”

  Chrysanthemums blazed in a central bed. A group of kids, undergraduates probably, strolled beneath the Gothic arches in black gowns. A bicycle whirred by. Gray’s set face, that look of pain. He would order his jet back to New York tomorrow. It was probably better that way. But what about his garden? Would he fire her? Refuse to reimburse all her expenses? Why had she decided to stay at the George? Was there an equivalent of a Motel 6 in England?

  “Through here,” Peter said briskly, heaving open a massive oak door to reveal a set of stone steps. “Third entryway on the left.”

  · · ·

  MARGAUX STRAND SURPRISED HER. JO HAD FORMED AN image of a tidy but plain woman, with brown hair rather like her own; a no-nonsense girl who dealt in ideas, not things. But Margaux was what Peter would have called smashing. She rose from her desk like Venus from the half-shell, sinuous and tall. Her hair was jet black and fell in waves; her lips were full and red; her eyes were liquid pools. When she smiled, it was as though a curtain had parted on a wondrous world. Jo stared at her, astounded; Peter reached for his necktie.

  “Peter, darling,” Margaux breathed, and slid around her desk to greet them.

  She wore a simple sheath that fell to her toned thighs, and black Chanel boots that rose above the knee. Involuntarily, Jo took a step back, wanting the support of the wall behind her. The woman was going to kiss Peter. Not just on the cheek—but a full-body snog, fingers in his hair, curves leaning into his frame. “Gorgeous,” Margaux murmured. “You always smell so delicious. Like saddle-soap and foxed pages. Isn’t he delicious?”

  She threw Jo a complicitous smile, as though they both understood Peter was catnip to women, and reached out one long-fingered hand. “Tell me all about yourself. I’m so thrilled to meet you.”

  “Margaux—Professor Strand, I should say—” Peter stuttered, his face flaming. “May I introduce Miss Jo Bellamy. From the United States. She’s a client, as I mentioned on the phone.”

  “Where in the States?” Margaux enthused. “I just got back from New York last week! Still dead tired, of course—conferences are such a body slam, aren’t they, and then we were clubbing until all hours, I’m afraid. I’ve been twined in the sheets ever since, can’t drag myself out of bed—” A smoldering glance here for Peter.

  Jo struggled to find something to say, but I’m from Delaware just didn’t seem appropriate.

  “Miss Bellamy’s on rather a short lead today,” Peter supplied. “Expected in Kent this evening. So perhaps we—”

  “Sit down! Sit down! And let me see your treasure. You found it at Sissinghurst, Peter says? Among Vita’s things? I’ve been tearing out my hair ever since I heard! I spent months going through the Sackville-West papers for my last book—Sapphist Writers in Arcadia. I can’t imagine how I missed your notebook.”

  “It was among the gardener’s things,” Jo managed.

  “Ah. That explains it.” Margaux, from her tone, didn’t do outbuildings.

  Jo took a chair; Peter took the couch, and Margaux flung herself down beside him, legs drawn up helter-skelter beneath her. One arm rested lightly on Peter’s shoulder; she was leaning over him like an eager child awaiting a bedtime story. Peter’s frame stiffened and his breathing, Jo noticed, accelerated slightly. The expression she’d come to recognize—polite and apologetic—was replaced with one of almost wooden resolve. How much of Margaux’s behavior was reflexive—the social habit of a mesmerizing woman—and how much was targeted deliberately at Peter? Was Margaux mad about him—or simply enjoying her obvious power over him?

  Peter cleared his throat, then nodded at Jo. “If we could see the notebook, Miss Bellamy?”

  She took it from her purse and handed it to Margaux. “I may have noticed it when other people didn’t, because it was labeled with my grandfather’s first name. Jock. He worked at Sissinghurst in 1941.”

  Margaux turned the notebook over in her hands, studying the binding, and then her immense brown eyes came up to meet Jo’s. “Where’s the label now?”

  “In my hotel in Cranbrook.”

  “The George?” She didn’t bother to wait for Jo’s answer but opened the notebook and took a sudden deep breath. “Good Lord. It certainly looks like Virginia’s handwriting.” Her gaze moved over the page. “But the dates! Peter—you must know the dates are all wrong.”

  “Of course.” He said it calmly and without apology. “That’s why we’re here. The dates raise significant questions—if the writing is absolutely Woolf’s.”

  Margaux went still for the space of three seconds. Jo saw the sex-kitten pose die out of her body as swiftly as the sun retreats behind cloud; then she uncurled herself from the sofa and crossed to her desk. She gathered a magnifying lens and a pair of gloves, shifted her laptop to the low table near the sofa, and ignored them both for the next fifteen minutes.

  Peter, during the course of Margaux’s examination, visibly relaxed. His rigid limbs eased into the corner of the sofa; one loafered foot crossed over his knee; he even managed a smile and a raised brow for Jo. She was watching the don, however. Margaux was parsing the notebook’s difficult handwriting effortlessly, employing her magnifying lens once in five pages. Every so often, she let out a chortle or gave a distracted nod.

  “Where’s the rest?” she demanded when she came to the end. She was studying the two-word phrase Apostles Screed with a faint line between her eyes. “Who’s had a go with the knife?”

  “We’re not sure,” Peter said. “There may not be any more.”

  Margaux rose restlessly and began to pace. “God, I wish I could smoke.”

  “Still off the weed, then?” Peter observed. “Good girl. Stuff was killing you. And it absolutely destroys the palate.”

  Jo glanced at her watch; nearly four-fifteen. If she was going to make it back to London by dinner, she’d have to push. “So what do you think? About the notebook? Could Woolf have written it?”

  Margaux stood still for an instant, her back to both of them. She was staring out the leaded windows of her rooms, at the blazing autumn of Magdalen’s quad. She looked, Jo thought, like some sort of diva; Brünnhilde in boots, from a modernist staging of Wagner. She was beautiful and terrible and potent and strange. She gathered her long hair into a swift knot. Her hands, Jo noticed, were shaking.

  “I can’t give you an opinion. Not absolutely. Not tonight. I’d need more time.”

  “But you’re not totally ruling it out,” Peter interjected. “That it could be Woolf, I mean.”

  Margaux sank back onto the sofa. This time, she kept her hands to herself and her eyes on the text. “All right. I’ll run through my notes. As you’ve already observed, whoever wrote this knew enough about Virginia’s life and history to be comfortable putting her at Sissinghurst. I presume the writer also knew something about your Jock.” A swift obsidian glance at Jo. “But there are other things. Whole phrases lifted from certain works. The first few lines are almost a direct quote of an unpublished fragment—the bit about charact
ers in books, haunting the minds of those who read them, like ghosts. She cribs ‘Clarissa Dalloway in Bond Street,’ too, when she describes her walk through the London Blitz. And she mentions Lapinova in the snare—that’s from a rather obscure short story about a couple who pretend they’re rabbits, and are fond of each other as rabbits might be, until the husband declares that Lapinova—who stood for the wife—was strangled in a snare. It’s generally interpreted as Woolf’s veiled comment on her marriage. She and Leonard used to pretend they were monkeys, but it’s assumed Leonard wearied of that bit of playacting. The snare can be read as his attempt to strangle her selfhood. Virginia was constantly fighting his control, you know—there’s even a body of theory that regards her as entirely sane, and suggests her ‘madness’ was invented by those around her as a method of stifling her independent genius.”

  Peter rolled his eyes. “Is suicide the act of a sound mind?”

  “Perhaps. If death represents the ultimate freedom.”

  “But she’d had bouts of madness before Woolf ever entered the picture! She’d tried suicide around World War One!”

  “It is a woman’s ultimate weapon to fight the social forces limiting her self-expression by withdrawing from that same society—by negating it through noninvolvement. Woolf established that idea as early as 1907—”

  It was an old argument between them, Jo could see, and it was growing more heated. “We don’t know that she committed suicide,” she interposed. “The notebook doesn’t tell us.”

  They both turned to stare at her. Something in Margaux’s face changed. She nodded once, swiftly, and leaned away from Peter. “Bang on. The notebook raises all kinds of questions. Did she leave Leonard, wanting desperately to live? And did he find her? Force her to go back? Driving her, in the end, into that swollen river?”

  “Or was she pushed?” Peter said, with a sidelong glance at Jo.

  Somewhere, a bell tolled twice, the half-hour.

  “Bollocks,” Margaux spat viciously. She rose and moved dismissively toward her desk. “Time for sherry with the department. There’s a visiting French scholar I simply must greet—he may be hired—and then there’s the Yearsley dinner—always such a bore, but an absolute command performance, Peter, you remember. I really must dash.”