Her voice rang with urgency. What on earth had happened now? Reluctantly, Olivia reached for her appointment diary. A session with the Chairman at half past eleven, and then a meeting with the Advertising Manager at two. She did a few swift calculations. The Chairman would probably not claim more than an hour of her time, but that did not leave …
“Oh, Olivia, please.”
Reluctantly, she gave in. “All right. But it will have to be a fairly speedy lunch. I must be back here at two.”
“You’re a saint.”
“Where shall we meet?”
“You say.”
“L’Escargot, then.”
“I’ll book a table.”
“No, I’ll take care of that.” Olivia had no intention of sitting at some undistinguished table next to the kitchen door. “I’ll get my secretary to do it. One o’clock, and don’t be late.”
“I won’t be.…”
“Antonia. Where is Danus?”
But Antonia had already rung off.
* * *
The taxi jerked its slow way through the midday traffic and the crowded, summery streets. In it Olivia sat, vaguely apprehensive. Antonia’s voice over the telephone had betrayed a state of some agitation, and Olivia was not perfectly certain of what sort of reception she was about to receive. She imagined their reunion. Saw herself walking into L’Escargot and finding Antonia waiting for her. Antonia would be wearing her usual worn jeans and cotton shirt, and would look, in that costly venue of expense-account business men, totally out of place. It’s really important. What could be so important that she had claimed an hour of Olivia’s precious day, and would not take No for an answer? It was hard to believe that anything could possibly have gone wrong for Danus and Antonia, but it was always better to prepare oneself for the worst. Various eventualities presented themselves. They had been unable to find any suitable plot in which to raise their cabbages, and Antonia now wanted to discuss some alternative plan. They had found a plot but felt unenthusiastic about the house that went with it, and wished Olivia to travel to Devon, view it, and give her opinion. Antonia had started a baby. Or perhaps they had discovered that after all they had little in common, and so no future to share, and had decided to part.
Quailing from the prospect, Olivia prayed that this was not the case.
The taxi drew up outside the restaurant. She got out, paid off the driver, crossed the pavement, and went in through the door. Inside, as always, it was crowded and warm, bustling with activity. As always, it smelled of mouth-watering food, fresh coffee, and expensive cigars. The prosperous business men were there, lining the bar, and there, too, sitting at a small table, was Antonia. But she was not alone because Danus was at her side, and Olivia scarcely recognized them. For they were not wearing their usual casual, comfortable gear, but were dressed up to the nines. Antonia’s shining hair was coiled up at the back of her head, and she wore Aunt Ethel’s earrings and a delectable dress of Wedgwood blue, splashed with huge white flowers. And Danus was sleek and groomed as a racehorse, in a dark grey suit so smoothly cut as to fill Noel Keeling’s heart with envy. They looked sensational; young, rich, and happy. They looked beautiful.
They spied Olivia at once, rose to their feet, and came to greet her.
“Oh, Olivia…”
Olivia, gawping, pulled herself together. She kissed Antonia, turned to Danus. “This is unexpected. For some reason I didn’t think you were going to be here.”
Antonia laughed. “That’s what I wanted you to think. I wanted it to be a surprise.”
“Wanted what to be a surprise?”
“This is our wedding lunch. That’s why it was so important that you came. We got married this morning.”
The party was on Danus. He had ordered champagne, and the bottle waited in a bucket of ice by their table. For once, Olivia, made reckless by celebration, broke her rule about not drinking at lunch-time, and it was she who raised her glass and toasted their happiness.
They talked. There was much to be told and much to hear. “When did you come to London?”
“Yesterday morning. We stayed last night at The Mayfair, and it’s almost as grand as The Sands. And when we get back this afternoon, we’re going to get into the car and drive to Edinburgh and have a couple of days with Danus’ mother and father.”
“How about the sketches?” Olivia asked Danus.
“We spent yesterday afternoon with Mr. Brookner at Boothby’s. It was the first time we’d actually seen them.”
“Are you selling them?”
“Yes. They’re going to be shipped to New York next month and auctioned there at the beginning of August. At least, thirteen of them are going. We’re keeping one. The Terrazzo Garden. We felt we had to keep just one.”
“Of course. And what about the nursery garden? Did you have any luck?”
They told her. After much searching, they had found, in Devon, what they were looking for. Three acres of land, once the walled garden of a large old house. The property included a small garden and sizeable glasshouses in good repair, and Danus had put in an offer, which had been accepted.
“That’s wonderful! But where are you going to live?”
Oh, there was a cottage as well, not very large and very dilapidated. “But because of it being so grotty, well, that brought the price down and we were able to afford it.”
“So what are you using for money until such time as the sketches are sold?”
“We got a bridging loan from the bank. And to save money, we’ll do as much of the renovation work on the cottage as we can.”
“Where will you live meantime?”
“We’ve hired a caravan.” Antonia could scarcely contain her excitement. “And Danus has bought a cultivator, and we’re going to plant an enormous crop of potatoes, just to clean the ground. And after that we’ll really be able to start. And I’m going to keep hens and ducks, and sell the eggs.…”
“How far are you from civilization?”
“Only three miles to a little market town … that’s where we’ll sell our produce. And flowers and plants too. The greenhouse will be crammed with early blooms. And pot plants, and … oh, Olivia, I can’t wait to show it to you. When the house is finished, will you come and stay?”
Olivia considered the invitation. She had already drunk three glasses of champagne and had no intention of making rash commitments that she might later regret.
“Will your cottage be warm?”
“We’re going to put in central heating.”
“And it will have plumbing? I won’t have to go down to the garden every time I need the loo?”
“No, we promise you won’t have to do that.”
“And there will be boiling-hot bath-water at all hours of the day?”
“Boiling.”
“And you will have a guest-room? Which I will not have to share with human being, cat, dog, or hen?”
“You shall have it all to yourself.”
“And the guest-room will have a wardrobe filled, not with some other person’s fusty evening dresses and moth-eaten fur coats, but with twenty-four brand-new coat-hangers?”
“All padded.”
“In that case”—Olivia sat back in her chair—“you’d better get busy. Because I shall come.”
Later, on the pavement, they stood in the warm sunshine, waiting for the taxi that would take Olivia back to her office.
“What fun it’s been. Goodbye, Antonia.” They hugged enormously and kissed with much affection.
“Oh, Olivia … thank you for everything. But mostly, thank you for coming today.”
“It’s I who should thank you both for inviting me. I haven’t had such a lovely surprise, nor such a delicious boozy lunch, in years. After all that champagne, I doubt if I shall be able to make any sense for the rest of the afternoon.”
The taxi trundled up. Olivia turned to Danus. “Goodbye, dear boy.” He kissed her on both cheeks. “Take care of Antonia. And lots of luck.”
H
e opened the taxi door for her, and she got in and he slammed the door shut behind her. “Venus,” she told the driver briskly, and as the taxi moved forward, she waved furiously out of the back window. Antonia and Danus waved back and Antonia blew kisses, and then they turned and began to walk in the opposite direction, away from Olivia, and hand in hand.
She settled back in her seat with a sigh of satisfaction. All, for Antonia and Danus, had ended well. And Mumma had been right in her judgement, because they were the sort of young people who deserved encouragement, and to be given, if necessary, a helping hand. Which she had done. Now, it was up to them, with their tumbledown cottage and their cultivator and their hens and plans for the future, and their marvellous, unshakeable optimism.
And what of Penelope’s children? How would they handle their good fortune, and how would they fare? Nancy, she decided, would indulge herself in some way. Perhaps buy a Range Rover, in which to lord it over her cronies at the local point-to-points, but that would be all. All else would go on funding the status symbol of the most expensive private education for Melanie and Rupert. At the end of which they would emerge ungrateful and probably unimproved.
She thought of Noel. Noel, as yet, still worked at the same job, but as soon as he was able to lay hands on his inheritance, Olivia had a fairly shrewd idea that he would chuck advertising and cook up some brilliant scheme for going it alone. Commodity broking, or perhaps some sky-high property dealings. As likely as not, he would run through his capital, and at the end of the day end up married to some rich, well-connected, and hideous girl, who would worship and adore him, and to whom he would be consistently unfaithful. Olivia found herself smiling. He was an impossible man but, after all, her brother, and in her heart she wished him well.
Which left only herself, and there were no question marks there. Olivia would invest Mumma’s money prudently, with old age and retirement in mind. She imagined herself in twenty years’ time—alone, unmarried, and still living in the little house in Ranfurly Road. But independent, even quite comfortably off. Able to afford the small pleasures and luxuries she had always enjoyed. Going to the theatre and concerts, entertaining her friends, taking holidays abroad. Perhaps, for company, she would have a little dog. And she would go to Devon and stay with Danus and Antonia Muirfield. And when they came to London, bringing with them the brood of children which they would doubtless have, they would visit Olivia, and she would show those children her favourite museums and galleries, and take them to the ballet and the pantomime at Christmas. She would be like a nice aunt. No, not an aunt, a nice grandmother. It would be like having grandchildren. And it occurred to her then, that these grandchildren would be Cosmo’s grandchildren too. Which was strange. Like watching a tangle of loose threads unravel and plait themselves into a single braided cord, stretching ahead into the future.
The taxi halted. She looked, and saw, in some surprise, that they had arrived, were parked alongside the prestigious building that housed the offices of Venus. Cream stone and plate glass glittered with reflected sunlight, and the topmost floors pierced the starch-blue sky.
She got out and paid the driver. “Keep the change.”
“Oh. Thanks very much, love.”
She went up the broad white steps that led to the massive entrance, and as she did so, the commissionaire stepped forward to hold open the door for her.
“It’s a lovely day, Miss Keeling.”
She paused, to turn upon him a smile the brilliance of which he had never seen before.
“Yes,” she said. “It’s a particularly lovely day.”
She went through the door. Into her kingdom, her world.
Read all of Rosamunde Pilcher’s wonderful novels
The Shell Seekers
The Carousel
Voices in Summer
The Blue Bedroom and Other Stories
September
Flowers in the Rain and Other Stories
Coming Home
Wild Mountain Thyme
Under Gemini
Sleeping Tiger
The Empty House
The End of Summer
Snow in April
The Day of the Storm
Another View
Winter Solstice
AN OUTPOURING OF PRAISE FOR THE SHELL SEEKERS
“A HUGE, WARM SAGA … A deeply satisfying story written with love.”
—The New York Times Book Review
“BEAUTIFULLY DONE … A book about families … When the reader closes the book, it is with a sense of regret—regret that there is no more.”
—Boston Herald
“A LOVELY STORY, the best, really absorbing book I’ve read in a long time, the kind you hate to put down and especially hate to finish.”
—Atlanta Journal & Constitution
“Immensely real and immediately recognizable.”
—Philadelphia Inquirer
“RICHLY COMPLEX … A family saga as delicate and evocative as the painting that serves as the title.”
—Seattle Post-Intelligencer
“Warm and emotional … Readers everywhere will recognize parts of their own lives and identify with Pilcher’s skillfully drawn characters.”
—Fort Worth Evening Star-Telegram
“Through the eyes and heart of this very special woman we have an opportunity to experience art and music and the joys of culinary preparations and repasts … through her we become even more sensitive to the air around us … Rosamunde Pilcher has given us a gift in THE SHELL SEEKERS, one which we cherish.”
—The West Coast Review of Books
Grateful acknowledgment is made for permission to quote from “Where or When” by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart. Copyright © 1937 by Chappell & Co., Inc. Copyright renewed. International. Copyright secured. All Rights Reserved. Used by permission.
Grateful acknowledgment is made for permission to quote from “You’re the Top” and “I Get a Kick Out of You” by Cole Porter. Copyright © 1934 by Warner Bros., Inc. (renewed). All rights reserved. Used by permission.
THE SHELL SEEKERS
Copyright © 1987 by Rosamunde Pilcher.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
ISBN: 0-312-96132-4
EAN: 80312-96132-9
St. Martin’s Press hardcover edition published in 1987
Dell paperback edition/February 1989
St. Martin’s Paperback edition/July 1997
St. Martin’s Paperbacks are published by St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
eISBN 9781250032195
First eBook edition: February 2013
The Shell Seekers Page 67