‘I think I’ve messed up,’ she said at last.
‘What do you mean?’ Gertie asked. ‘The paperwork?’
‘No, not the paperwork.’ She took a deep breath. ‘Julian.’ Just saying his name brought a flood of emotions to the fore.
‘How?’ Gertie said, perching on the desk next to her sister.
‘I told him that I thought we should take break,’ she confided to Gertie.
‘A break? But I didn’t think you were really seeing him,’ Gertie said.
‘I know,’ Celeste said. ‘I told you – I messed up.’
‘What did you say exactly?’
She closed her eyes, trying to recall her words. ‘I told him that I felt pressured by him and that I didn’t want him to have any expectations of me.’
‘Oh, Celly! When did this happen?’
‘After the auction.’
‘But I thought you went out to dinner?’ Gertie said.
‘We did. And then he saw me to the station and I told him.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me what had happened?’
‘I’ve been –’
‘Don’t say you’ve been too busy,’ Gertie said, ‘because you always say that.’
‘But it’s true.’
Gertie shook her head. ‘You’ve been trying to bury it, haven’t you? You were hoping you could hide it away and forget about it.’ She leaned in closer to Celeste and watched as her sister slowly nodded.
‘I’m so desperate not to feel anything but I can’t stop this,’ Celeste said, her dark eyes wide and wild-looking.
‘And you shouldn’t try to! It’s not natural to try and stop your emotions,’ Gertie said. ‘Have you talked to him since?’
‘No,’ she said, the one word filled with more anguish than any word had a right to be.
‘Celly, he adores you! You’ve only got to pick up the phone for him to come running back to you.’
Celeste shook her head. ‘You didn’t see the way he looked at me. It was awful, Gertie, and I’ve only got myself to blame. I made him look at me like that!’
Gertie got up from the desk and hugged her sister. ‘You really like him, don’t you?’
‘I didn’t know how much until I said those stupid things.’
‘Well, tell him that! Tell him what a silly idiot you’ve been. He’ll understand!’
Celeste gave a funny laughing cry as Gertie continued to hug her.
‘I’m too scared to call him. I’ve blown it. He was so patient with me but I just went too far. I can’t ask anything else from him.’
‘I think you’re wrong,’ Gertie said. ‘I think if he knew how you really felt, he’d be by your side in a minute.’
Celeste shook her head. ‘I can’t do that to him. He probably hates me now.’
‘He won’t hate you.’
‘He’ll have made a voodoo doll of me and have it full of pins, which is probably why I’m in so much pain!’
Gertie squeezed her shoulder. ‘You’re in love and that can be the worst pain in the world when it isn’t going right.’
Celeste looked up. ‘You said that like you know what it means.’
‘Did I?’ Gertie said.
It was Celeste’s turn to scrutinise her sister. ‘Is there anything you want to tell me?’
Gertie smiled. ‘No,’ she said. ‘The only thing I want to tell you is that you’re wrong – completely wrong – if you think Julian won’t want to hear from you. I think you should ring him. Just talk to him.’
Celeste shook her head again. ‘I can’t,’ she said.
Gertie hopped down from her perch on the desk. ‘Okay!’
‘And don’t you dare ring him, Gertie!’
Gertie stopped when she’d reached the door. ‘I won’t,’ she said.
‘Promise?’
‘Promise,’ Gertie said.
But it was a promise destined to be broken.
Celeste wasn’t the only one obsessing over not hearing from a man. Gertie had spent more time checking her phone for messages from James than she had looking at roses, which – for a rosarian in summer – was downright irresponsible.
She had lost count of the number of times she had cried herself to sleep. It was just so hard for her to keep the faith when she had nothing tangible to hold on to. She still hadn’t told anyone either, although Celeste had been on to her a couple of times, knowing something was going on.
Poor Celeste, she thought. Like Evie, Gertie adored Julian and knew that he and Celeste would make a really great couple, but Gertie feared that it was never going to happen now. At least Evie had got things right in the man department, she thought as she walked into the relative darkness of the manor after having spent the day in the garden. She was carrying a little basket filled with fresh eggs from her hens. Her bare limbs were a rich brown and she felt the wonderful fatigue of a hard-working gardener.
The grandfather clock was striking seven as she crossed the hall and saw Celeste.
‘I’ve come in search of tea,’ Gertie said.
‘Me too,’ Celeste said. ‘I didn’t realise what the time was.’
‘You should really forget about that study once in a while and get yourself outside. It’s been a beautiful day.’
Celeste rubbed her eyes. ‘Perhaps you’re right,’ she said.
‘You know I am,’ she said. ‘The summer won’t last forever, you know.’
The sound of laughter could be heard from the kitchen and Gertie and Celeste soon saw that Evie and Esther were cooking something on the Aga.
‘There you both are!’ Evie said. ‘We were about to send out a search party!’
‘What are you cooking?’ Gertie asked, worrying about the state of her beloved Aga.
‘What is it again, Esther?’ Evie asked.
‘Half-the-garden soup,’ Esther said. ‘Basically, it’s whatever you can find that’s in season.’
‘Sounds ominous,’ Celeste said.
‘Well, there are plenty of eggs here if it all goes horribly wrong,’ Gertie said, placing her basket on the table.
‘It won’t go wrong,’ Evie said. ‘Esther is the most amazing cook!’
‘Oh, is she?’ Gertie said, feeling that her position in the kitchen was being usurped.
‘Hey! Have you guys heard the latest?’ Evie said.
‘No, what?’ Celeste asked.
‘James and Samantha have sold their house,’ she said lightly.
‘Really?’ Celeste said. ‘I didn’t even know it was for sale.’
Evie nodded. ‘They’re leaving Little Eleigh.’
The colour drained from Gertie’s face. ‘No, you’ve heard that wrong,’ she said. ‘You’re always getting things wrong, Evie.’
‘I haven’t got it wrong. Not this time. I saw James in the post office. He told me.’
‘You talked to James?’
‘Yes,’ Evie said. ‘He told me to tell you both. He’s trying to let everyone know before he flies out next week.’
‘Flies out where?’ Gertie said.
‘To France,’ Evie said. ‘They’re selling up here and buying some ramshackle gite over there. It sounds amazing – like the sort of place you’re always talking about with shutters that open out onto the hills. Hey! Maybe he’ll invite us out there. What do you think?’
Celeste had been watching Gertie’s face during this exchange, noticing its pallor and stunned expression.
‘I don’t think we should fish for an invite, Evie,’ Celeste warned. ‘Didn’t you sell her some container roses the other week?’
Gertie nodded.
‘Probably to make the garden look good for buyers,’ Evie said.
Gertie, who’d only just sat down at the table, stood up.
‘Where are you going?’ Evie said.
‘I’m not hungry,’ she said.
‘But we’ve got absolutely gallons of this soup!’ Evie said, but her sister had already left the room. ‘What’s the matter with her?’
Celeste sighed. ‘I’m not sure but I think I’d better try and find out.’
Celeste did her best to track Gertie down but she’d obviously left the confines of the manor. She didn’t get a chance to talk to her until later that evening when she heard a series of loud, angry thumps coming from the kitchen once everybody was safely out of the way.
Taking a deep breath and not quite knowing what she was going to discover, Celeste entered the kitchen.
‘Hey,’ she said softly.
‘Hey,’ Gertie replied without looking up.
‘What are you doing?’ Celeste asked.
‘Making bread,’ Gertie said. ‘What does it look like?’
Celeste flinched at the tone of her voice. Bread. That was probably the worst-case scenario. It was far worse than scones or lemon cake, that was for sure. Gertie obviously had a lot of anger inside if she’d felt compelled to knead dough last thing at night.
‘I’ve been trying to find you,’ she said.
‘Yeah? Well, I’ve been trying not to be found.’
‘I guessed,’ Celeste said, sitting down on the bench on the other side of the table and feeling the top vibrate under Gertie’s vigorous ministrations. She watched as her sister threw and kneaded the bread dough with great force, Gertie’s face flushed to its very limit with her efforts.
‘Are you going to talk to me?’ Celeste asked after a while.
‘What would you like to talk about?’ Gertie said, her tone cold and closed.
‘How about James Stanton?’
Gertie stopped what she was doing and wiped a floury wrist across her forehead. ‘Why do you want to talk about him?’
‘You know why.’
The sisters stared at each other for a long time before the tears rose into Gertie’s eyes.
‘Oh, sweetheart!’ Celeste was on her feet in a second and had rounded the table to take her sister in her arms, embracing her as huge sobs wracked her body.
‘He told me he loved me!’ she cried. ‘He said we were going to be together and I believed him.’
She continued to cry and Celeste continued to hold her, waiting until she was ready to say more.
‘I wish you’d told me,’ Celeste said eventually.
Gertie gave a big sniff before wiping her eyes with a tissue from out of her apron pocket and looking at her sister. ‘You didn’t tell me about what happened with Julian,’ she said.
Celeste nodded. ‘Ah, yes,’ she said, ‘and Evie didn’t tell us about the baby.’
They looked at each other with sadness in their eyes but tiny smiles on their faces.
‘We seem to be very good at keeping secrets from each other,’ Gertie said, giving her nose a fierce blow.
‘I wonder why,’ Celeste said with a touch of irony.
‘Because Mum never let us talk about our feelings?’ Gertie said.
Celeste nodded. ‘Whenever I tried to tell her anything important to me, she’d just brush me off. It was impossible to get close to her and open up.’
‘But we mustn’t become like that,’ Gertie said. ‘Not ever.’
‘I know,’ Celeste said. ‘So are you going to tell me what’s been going on with James?’
Gertie took a deep breath and the two of them sat down at the kitchen table, and Celeste listened to her sister open up about the man she’d fallen in love with.
‘I finally managed to talk to him this afternoon,’ she said, bringing the story up to date. ‘He’s been offered a job in France. I said I’d go with him. Can you believe that? I was going to give all this up here just so I could be with him, but he said he owes it to Samantha to make things work. He said the climate will do her the world of good and they want to make a fresh start of things.’
‘Oh, Gertie. I’m so sorry.’ Celeste reached across the table to hold her sister’s hand.
‘He’d said he was unhappy. He’d told me he couldn’t live without me and that Samantha made him miserable. Was he lying all that time? Was he just using me?’
Celeste bit her lip. ‘I think maybe he was exaggerating the truth,’ she said.
‘I thought he loved me, Celly. I thought we had a future together.’ Tears welled up in her dark eyes again but she managed to hold them back this time. ‘I’ve been so stupid! I should never have got involved with someone who was married! Why did I do that to myself? Why?’
‘Because you’re a romantic,’ Celeste told her. ‘You’re led by the heart rather than the head – you always have been.’
‘Well, he’s broken my heart so I guess I won’t be making that mistake again.’
Celeste watched as she got up and began to scrape all the bread dough from the table into one big messy heap.
‘What are you doing?’ she asked.
‘Binning it,’ Gertie said. ‘It wouldn’t be very good anyway. I forgot to add the yeast.’
32.
It was the next morning when Evie came charging into the study without so much as knocking on the door.
‘Why are Tennyson’s Love Poems floating in the moat?’ she said.
Celeste looked up from an invoice she was trying to decipher. ‘They must belong to Gertie. Did you rescue them?’
‘No. They’re kind of half-stuck on a lily pad, though, if she wants to try and reach it.’
‘I’m not sure she’ll want to. The moat might be the best place for it.’
‘Did you find out what’s bugging her?’ Evie asked.
‘It’s a who rather than a what, and his name’s James Stanton,’ Celeste said.
‘You mean –’
‘Yep,’ Celeste said.
‘Then he was having an affair all this time!’ Evie said, a light in her eyes. ‘Jeepers! I’d never have guessed it would be with our Gertie!’
Celeste shook her head. ‘Look – don’t make a big scene about it, okay? She had real feelings for him.’
‘Well, he’s a good-looking guy,’ Evie said, flopping down into their mother’s chair. ‘A complete sod, obviously, but pretty handsome. Poor Gertie! It’s a good job he’s left Little Eleigh already or I’d punch him in the nose.’
Celeste sighed. ‘That wouldn’t solve anything.’
‘Maybe not, but it would be the right thing to do,’ Evie said.
‘Evelyn, you’ve really got to put a stop to this whole doing the right thing business. It always gets you into trouble.’
Evie sighed and her hand rested on her belly.
‘You okay?’ Celeste asked.
‘Yes, Aunt Celly, I’m fine,’ Evie said, raising a smile from her sister. ‘Well, I was a bit sick this morning but I’m okay now.’
‘Can you feel anything yet?’
‘Just indigestion,’ Evie said. ‘Gertie’s going to make me a big vat of peppermint tea and she’s expecting me to drink it all. Disgusting.’
Celeste smiled. ‘She’s put me on a strict rotation of lemon balm and camomile to counter stress.’
‘Holy herbal!’ Evie said.
‘But listen,’ Celeste said, ‘you mustn’t tell anybody about Gertie and James, okay?’
‘Don’t say it would have brought disgrace to our family,’ Evie said, suddenly serious.
Celeste looked shocked as she remembered the frequent reprimand of their mother. ‘I’d never say that,’ she said. ‘Never!’
‘Okay,’ Evie said, placated by her sister’s look of total horror.
‘But we live in a small village and you know what it can be like, don’t you? Gertie’s such a private person and it would be awful if she became the victim of malicious gossip. I think it would break her.’
Evie had the good sense to nod. ‘Poor Gertie,’ she said again. ‘Shall I go and talk to her?’
‘If you can find her,’ Celeste said.
It was late in the afternoon when the three sisters all found themselves in the living room. Earlier, Evie had found Gertie in a corner of the walled garden cuddling one of her hens and crying into its feathers, and the sisters had a good heart to heart before working companionably together and then heading into the house.
‘It’s too hot to do any more work,’ Evie complained, flopping on to a sofa, her blonde hair flattened against her head where she’d been wearing a sun hat. ‘At least I’ve dealt with the order from Mrs Peters. Her husband’s coming to collect it all tomorrow.’
‘And I’ve attacked the greenfly problem. Poor Madame Pierre Oger was smothered!’ Gertie said.
‘And I’ve cleared yet more paperwork,’ Celeste said. ‘I can finally see some of the desk now.’
Her sisters smiled.
‘Well, as soon as you’re done, you can help us out in the garden,’ Gertie said.
‘Yes, there’s that troublesome border with the bindweed you can help us with,’ Evie said.
‘Wow, thanks!’ Celeste said and they all laughed.
Celeste’s eyes roamed the room, resting on the auction catalogue which Julian had brought. She leaned forward and picked it up, acknowledging the fact that Julian had held it, too, not so long ago. Her mind spiralled over the time they’d spent together – brief snips of days snatched from busy working schedules. Would they have fared better if they’d spent more time together, Celeste wondered? But she’d been convinced she hadn’t wanted that. Why, oh why had she been such a fool? Why hadn’t she seen what a special man he was? And why hadn’t she realised just how deep her feelings were for him until it was too late?
‘You really should call him,’ Gertie said.
Celeste put the catalogue down. ‘No,’ she said.
‘I really miss him,’ Evie said. ‘I would have liked him as a brother-in-law.’
‘Evie!’ Celeste cried, rolling her eyes.
The Rose Girls Page 28