by M. M. Mayle
The helicopter is a surprise. To Colin too, although he thinks he knows who arranged for it. For Laurel, everything has gone by in a blur since landing at Gatwick, clearing customs and immigration, and transferring to the helipad under the protective guidance of two greeters. Because they were all headed in different directions, goodbyes to Rayce and David were hurried—a distinct blessing in David’s case.
They’ve been in the air fifteen minutes when Colin draws her attention to a lovely stretch of scenery within a landscape made up of nothing but lovely scenery. They pass over forested areas and broad meadows, some defined by hedgerows, others set apart by stone walls and punctuated by small ponds that would be water hazards if this were a golf course. But it must be a park, she decides, upon spotting large cultivated sections—flower beds, they are—and three widely separated gazebo-like structures modeled after Greek temples. When the helicopter banks to pursue another direction, an array of unconventional structures comes into view. These structures are dominated by an immense stone edifice set at the head of the shallow valley they all occupy. Before the helicopter banks again, she takes in details of the dominant building—multiple gables and chimneys, a section of crenellated roof line, sunlight glinting off the countless panes of a multi-story diamond-mullioned window
From still another flight angle, she spies a lengthy ground-level colonnaded walkway, a porte-cochère entryway, a partially enclosed courtyard, and a broad raised terrace that can only belong to one of England’s great stately homes—one of those National Trust properties that are open to paying guests.
“What’s it called?” She leans in close to make herself heard over rotor noise.
Colin appears no less captivated than she by the splendor below. “Cattle barn . . . dairy . . . dovecote . . . garages . . . stable . . . staff quarters . . . poultry sheds . . . oasthouses . . . conservatories . . . follies,” he recites as though reading from a brochure. “I’ve never seen it from this altitude.”
“What is it, what’s it called?”
“Terra Firma.”
“No, silly. Not the earth, the estate. Is it one I’ve heard of like ‘Knole’ or ‘Chartwell’ or ‘Sissinghurst?’”
“‘Terra Firma’ is the name of the estate. It’s home, Laurel, and I’d never seen it from this high up because the only other time I came home by chopper nothing much registered.”
She bites her bottom lip and squeezes his hand as the helicopter makes a wide swooping circle and steadies down for a landing on a leveled space a hundred yards or so from the most magnificent copper beech tree she has ever seen. In another direction, dogwood fronts a grove of larger trees, and the surrounding lawns are overrun with daffodils gone wild.
A safe distance away, an estate worker is waiting at the controls of a golf cart with trailer attached. The baggage is transferred in no time and they’re soon trundling along a graveled track bordering vegetable plots and fruit orchards, topiary displays, and formal rose gardens. Low balustered stone walls surround a sculpture garden featuring a triple-tiered fountain; high solid walls of yew hedge shelter a tennis court and swimming pool. They pass by an immense rectangular arbor, heavy with wisteria vines and furnished with rustic wooden benches; another gathering area features wrought-iron tables and chairs positioned among a dazzling array of potted annuals in first bloom. Then the track becomes a paved thoroughfare linking several outbuildings before ending at their stopping point, the broad raised terrace adjoining the colonnaded side of the mansion.
A sidelong glance at Colin, meant to convey teasing rebuke for never having mentioned any of this, finds him more nervous than she is. His jaw is working the way it did when he confronted her in her garage, he’s blinking rapidly the way he did when he placed the ring on her kitchen table, and he’s gripping her hand the way he did when she led him up the back stairs only hours ago.
Concern for him lessens her own anxiety when they enter the shadowy interior of the arcade, but does nothing to diminish her astonishment when they’re met with a veritable welcoming committee.
“I knew it,” Colin mutters. “A bleedin’ ambush, it is.” He laughs and slides an arm around her as they’re set upon by a small mob that includes three little girls, along with the children she expected to meet, a half-dozen more adults than anticipated, two very large dogs, three smaller ones, several cats, and a rooster.
TWO
Midmorning, April 12, 1987
In the bay-windowed brick-floored breakfast room, seated midway along a refectory table that accommodates twenty or more in mismatched spindle-back chairs, Laurel stops trying to process anything but the human elements surrounding her. The visuals are too numerous; she was already approaching sensory overload when she entered the house, so it’s no wonder she cannot absorb any more splendiferous sights—especially not after discovering Nate Isaacs’s enviable kitchen to have somehow replicated itself here in a seventeenth-century manor house.
Christian Thorne, introduced by Colin as legendary guitarist, great friend and fine neighbor, probable organizer of helicopter flights and impromptu brunch gatherings, is among those assembled. He’s nothing at all like Rayce. Or like Colin, for that matter. Chris is coolly attractive, soft-spoken, almost retiring in manner. His wife, former supermodel Susa Rosa, is gorgeous, charming, and a good sport when twitted by Colin for having a tendency to natter on. The three little Thorne daughters, Calliope, Cassiopeia, and Chrysanthemum—their real names, according to Colin—are uniformly adorable and unable to contain their merriment despite regular warnings from both parents.
Colin’s mother, Rachel, is up and down from her place at the head of the table, replenishing platters and refilling cups and glasses, waving off help from everyone but the house manager, Gemma Earle, wife of Samuel, who manages the estate. Two more household staff members are seated at the other end of the table, their names and positions unregistered in this endless stream of input.
For distraction, Laurel sneaks glances at Anthony in case he might have eyes for anyone but his father, who is seated between them. While reaching for another grilled tomato, Laurel leans past Colin to take a fresh reading and attracts attention from the head of the table. Rachel flickers a smile and nods her head just perceptibly, as though to say, “Yes, go ahead, but proceed with caution.”
Laurel bides her time until the Thorne sisters are released to vent their high spirits out-of-doors and Simon has become bored with the festivities and squirmed off Colin’s lap to resume play with a stack of interlocking blocks.
“Anthony, when all the introductions were made, I’m afraid I didn’t hear you say which of the dogs is yours,” Laurel fibs in hope of getting something started with the boy.
“Toby, the terrier, the yappy one,” Colin says.
“I think she was asking Anthony, dear,” Rachel says.
“Sorry.” Colin slides back his chair, enabling an unimpeded view of Anthony, who still won’t look in Laurel’s direction.
“And the rooster’s name is Cyril? Is that correct?” Laurel says, prepared to recite every name she did retain until one strikes a chord the boy is willing to hear.
Chris and Susa excuse themselves to supervise their shrieking children; Colin moves to the far end of the table, huddles with Samuel and staff about something called a water meadow; Rachel and Gemma busy themselves in the duplicate of Nate’s kitchen; Laurel is left to her own devices.
“I wonder . . . your dad tells me you know this place inside out . . . I wonder, Anthony, if you’d be willing to show me around, to show me where things are. Is that possible?”
“I guess,” Anthony says, chin close to chest. “Is that so you can decide if you want to stay?”
Lucky for him no one else heard the sharp-edged question. “We can talk about that as we go,” Laurel replies.
In halting fashion that covers grand spaces, modest spaces, multiple levels, two wings, several anterooms, half-landings, and dead-end corridors, it comes out that Anthony is aligned with David in thin
king she’s a temporary—there only for his father’s passing amusement. By the time this is made clear, they are at the top of the house in a vast open area bordered on both sides by shadowy bays, each inset with small dormer windows and furnished either with austere iron cots and painted chests of drawers or ranks of featureless storage cabinets. In sharp contrast, the central area is enlivened by a splendid oriental rug spread over wide-plank flooring, a pair of oversized rococo-framed floor mirrors, and a dozen or so gilt banquet chairs lined up as though to accommodate an audience. High above, set between massive hand-hewn beams, a raised rectangular skylight lends cheer even on an overcast day like today, and at either end of this curious chamber—neither conventional attic nor conventional living area—are utilitarian stone fireplaces, one flanked by a heavy wooden door which, according to Anthony, leads to the roof.
Despite the ongoing effort to absorb only essentials, Laurel soaks up the spirit of the oddly appealing environment, sits down on one of the gilt chairs to imagine rainy-day picnics, dress-up shows, and lively games of hide-and-seek held in this ideal setting. “Are you allowed to come up here on your own?” She beckons Anthony to sit with her.
He hesitates, then perches on the very edge of a chair three seats away. “I’m supposed to always tell someone if I come up here, but I thought today I could because . . . Are you gonna tell?”
“I’m someone. I know you’re up here, so you haven’t broken any rules. Okay?”
“I guess.”
“Very well. As long as we’re here and no one’s apt to come looking for us right away, I’d like to tell you what you can expect to happen in the coming weeks and months.” She shows him the engagement ring, encourages him to handle it, to slip it on his thumb and catch light with it while she explains what it signifies.
“Will you be my mother, then?”
“When I marry your father, I’ll automatically become your stepmother, but—”
“I know about them, they’re wicked.”
“Not always. As I was saying . . . If you and your dad and your brother all agree, I would like to adopt you and Simon and that would make me your legal mother, your official mother. Do you think that could work after we get to know each other a little better?”
“I guess.” He plucks at a loose thread on his sleeve. “But maybe I don’t want another mother. The first one wasn’t any good, she only pretended to be a mum and she was American like you, so how do I know you won’t do drugs and run away too?”
He slips off the chair and heads for the stairwell before she can think of anything to say that isn’t an epithet.
Soon after Laurel and Anthony return to the ground floor, the Thorne family leaves and the domestic staff scatters to various other tasks and diversions. Rachel suddenly has errands to run and friends to visit, leaving the apprentice family unit alone together for the first time.
They choose a stroll of the grounds as an activity that allows everyone to participate without extra pressure to perform or converse. Colin sets a pace that Simon can manage and a direction leading past previously unseen evidence of wealth, privilege, and antiquity. The two large hounds lead the way, kibitzed by the smaller dogs, one of them Anthony’s terrier, Toby.
Still protective of her senses, Laurel limits her intake to general impressions of the surroundings, distinguishing a windbreak of evergreens from a stand of oaks only because Anthony scavenges pinecones from the former, and a copse of hawthorn from a thicket of ilex only because one has shiny leaves and the other doesn’t. Three ancient-appearing stone cottages with steeply pitched slate roofs and ivy-covered walls must be staff houses because fresh curtains show at all the windows; the odd cone-shaped structures skylined above a meadow in the middle distance must be devoted to region-specific agriculture because she’s never seen buildings like that anywhere else.
For a while, they follow the paved portion of driveway leading to a set of immense iron gates set in equally immense stone pillars.
“That’s the only way out if you’re lookin’ to escape by land,” Colin dead-pans and goes on to explain that only the road frontage boasts iron fencing and it’s not original. “The real deal was carted away for the war effort back in the forties and after the war, the laird couldn’t afford to replace the full run of something approaching four miles.”
“Good lord, how many acres is that?”
“Don’t know, actually. I do know I started out with over six hundred before selling the hop fields to Chris to build on. I suppose I could ask him what he’s sitting on, then do the numbers.”
If the exact acreage doesn’t matter to him, it shouldn’t matter to her. Nor should the remainder of the fencing—screened for the most part by heavy planting and described by Colin as both compromise and concession.
“Chain link it is, topped with a triple strand of barbed wire. I would’ve preferred the ornamental iron with the outward slant to the spikes, but it wasn’t cost-effective. Fact is, I would’ve preferred no fence at all, but in my line of work it’s a given.”
The barbed wire matters, but she tries not to show it as they move back toward the house from an angle revealing the massive diamond-mullioned window and porte-cochère in full splendor. The postcard view. She absorbs it for an overwhelmed second or two, then looks away, focusing instead on Anthony’s play with the smaller dogs that are competing for thrown pinecones.
The overcast she was vaguely aware of earlier shows signs of breaking up, but the dark cloud that settled over her with Anthony’s cynical disclosure remains. Colin blames her borderline glumness on jetlag and sleep deprivation and gets no argument there. She does argue, however, when he suggests they turn back and that she give in and go to bed regardless of the hour.
“No, I’ll feel better tomorrow if I merge with the time zone now. Besides, I want to try out your spectacular kitchen and observe your evening rituals firsthand. Didn’t you say you have a new story for Simon?”
“Yeh, I can probably come up with one, but I think you ought to know you’re not expected to cook. Gemma will be back with one of the girls to prepare tea for the lads, then something for us later.”
“What do you mean I’m not expected to cook? What girls? What do you mean later?” She startles even herself with unexpected shrillness that stops Simon in his tracks and brings on loud wailing.
Laurel scoops him up, reproaching herself and soothing him in the same breath. But he won’t be comforted; he cries louder and struggles to go to Colin. Anthony observes the handoff with an expression best described as smug—simpering, even—and undesirable by any name.
“Take the dogs back to the house—go along, then!” Colin shouts at Anthony over the sound of Simon’s distress. Nothing more is said until Anthony and the dogs are out of sight and Simon’s howling is reduced to halfhearted snuffling.
“If you happened to have been watching, you’d know your little protest had nothing to do with his crying fit.” Colin kisses Simon and sets him down. “Anthony was badgering him all along, teasing him with the pinecones, heading off the dogs so they never returned one to Simon, making sure Simon never got a chance to throw one. I should have nipped it in the bud, but I didn’t want anything to spoil—”
“You have to stop treating me like a guest. I know a thing or two about sibling rivalry and I can take turmoil and tension and domestic upheaval and—”
“No, you can’t. Not on top of everything else you’ve been subjected to in the last twenty-four hours. Do you think I don’t know what this must be like for you? You must be so bloody overwhelmed you don’t know which way’s up. When I came out of my so-called hibernation, I was struck with similar—too much all at once. It’s gonna take time, sweetheart. Give it time. Please. Be a guest for long as it takes.”
He takes her face in his hands and kisses her long and lingeringly, the way he did on the plane, and anything resembling protest goes out of her.
When they reach the terrace, Simon darts inside the adjoining arcade and reappears r
iding a garishly-colored plastic tricycle, serpentining in and out of ancient archways, dodging time-weathered urns and verdigrised statuary, making it difficult to decide which is the anachronism. They sit for a while on a stone bench deep within the arcade, where Colin talks a little about his awakening here and about reacquainting himself with a child only partially remembered and a baby he didn’t recall at all.
As the afternoon wanes and Simon loses interest in cycling, they move to the open terrace and position chairs to monitor Simon’s activity in a play yard she hadn’t noticed earlier, and keep track of Anthony, who’s kept a low profile after his early dismissal.
“Whenever I let myself fantasize about you, it was always here that I envisioned you . . . just as you are now,” Colin says.
“Really?” She lifts a skeptical eyebrow.
“Yeh, yeh, yeh, naked in the bedroom too, but more times than not, I’d imagine you in this setting.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know, actually. Maybe because there’s a tranquility here I’ve never found anyplace else. Because I’d rather be here than anyplace else . . . because I’d rather be with you than anyone else.”
With six weeks lead time, Elizabeth Barrett Browning couldn’t put into words what she feels right now. “I love you,” she says almost apologetically, “I love you more than I know how to say.”
THREE
Morning, April 13, 1987
Total contentment may be a ways off, but on this bright new day intermediate gratification is everywhere Laurel looks. The en suite bathroom surpasses in scope and amenities the extravagant facilities at Nate Isaacs’s Manhattan apartment; the dressing room with built-in wardrobes and dresser drawers is half again larger than her New Jersey bedroom; the lavish bedchamber, as Colin calls it, contains features right out of Architectural Digest including an exquisite oriel window overlooking the terrace and gardens beyond. And for a bonus, a small tabby cat appears to have claimed her for its own.