Hothouse Flower (49 page)

The best decision
you
ever made, Mother
, thought Harry bitterly.

He jumped to his feet, unable to sit with her any longer. ‘I do apologise, Mother. It has all been quite a shock and I need some time alone. I will take myself off for a walk.’

‘Of course.
Je suis désolée, chéri
,’ she called after him as he walked swiftly down the steps from the terrace and away from her.

Harry walked fast, his breathing coming in short, uneven bursts. He ran from the cloying perfection of his mother’s garden and kept going until he reached open fields, swaying with green-eared corn.

He threw himself down on to the rough ground and let out a scream of agony and frustration, beating the bare earth like a toddler and crying Lidia’s name to the skies. Then he wept uncontrollably, for the girl he knew he would never stop loving and the future he had wanted so much.

Eventually, Harry turned on to his back and gazed up at the cloudless sky.

He could still go
now …
just leave … run away …

He shook his head in despair. How could he? His father was dying. From what his mother and Olivia had said, Harry knew the shock of his disappearance could hasten his father’s demise.

‘Oh, God! Oh, God!’ Harry cried out, his voice strangled with emotion.

He was trapped, well and truly. At least until after his father died.

And then what?

Could he really bear to leave his widowed mother to run the estate on her own – because Olivia would surely not stay to help her once her husband had deserted her? Adrienne simply would not manage. Therefore, to leave would mean destroying not only Wharton Park, but the lives of the many loyal workers whose future depended on it.

Harry searched the skies for any possibility of release. Perhaps the estate could be sold? But who, in this post-war era, would have the wherewithal to buy it? And besides, not only would it break his mother’s heart, but Harry knew she would fight tooth and nail against the idea. She had dedicated her life to it.

The only other possibility was to bring Lidia here to him.

But how could he? How could he divorce Olivia after all she had done, caring for both of his parents and for Wharton Park? Could he really announce that he was bringing a young girl from Thailand across the world to step into her shoes?

Harry sighed, knowing the notion was absurd. Lidia may be many things, but even he struggled to see her as mistress of an estate such as this. Besides, the cold would kill her. His Hothouse Flower would wilt and die.

Harry lay where he was for many hours, watching the dusk fall and, with it, his hope. Fate had conspired to make his plan impossible.

He could not walk away from Wharton Park. Even for Lidia.

But how was he to tell her? How could he write her a letter, informing her that everything he had promised was not to be?

Harry stood up disconsolately and made his way across the fields and back into the park. He decided that, for now, he would tell Lidia only that his father was sick and his return to Bangkok might be delayed. The finality of doing the right thing – setting her free immediately so that she could move on to a life without him – was currently beyond him.

He walked towards the hothouse and pushed the door open. It was deserted; Bill had left for the day. Harry felt his chest tighten as he breathed in the scent of Lidia. He walked down the benches until he reached the orchids. He lifted the pots and found an envelope, rather damp from the moisture of the pots hiding it. His heart quickened as he tore it open.

He choked in despair as he saw Lidia’s tiny, neat writing.

My darling Harry,

I get your letter from ship,
Ka
, and it makes me very happy. I too am missing you, and I cannot wait for your return. When I feel sad, I think about the future we will have together. And I then am happy. I wear your ring every day, and know it is symbol of our love, that one day we two will marry in front of both of our gods.

All here at hotel is well. We get some new linen and pillows for all the rooms, and have less blackout. We have many new guests now so Madame very happy.

All your friends here send best wishes to you, and everyone says they miss you playing piano in Bamboo Bar.

Please forgive my bad English writing. I am still learning, and hoping to get better. I am yours for eternity, Harry,
Ka
, your

Hothouse Flower.

X X X

‘Oh my love, my love …’ Harry groaned, cradling the letter to his chest. ‘How can I live like this? How can I live without you?’

He slumped on to the stool and re-read the letter, thinking surely death would be preferable to the way he felt now. Just then he heard footsteps and the door opening at the other end of the hothouse. Seeing that it was Olivia, he swiftly secreted the letter in his trouser pocket as he stood up.

She walked towards him, her face a picture of concern.

‘I have been looking for you everywhere, darling. Your mother said you had taken yourself off after lunch and she hadn’t seen you since.’

‘No. I needed – some time,’ he offered weakly.

‘I am so awfully sorry, Harry. I gather your mother told you the truth about your father.’

‘Yes, she did.’ Harry was glad to use this as an excuse for his red eyes and the heartbreak which must be written on his face.

She tentatively opened her arms to him. ‘May I hold you?’

Harry did not resist her embrace. He needed to feel the physical comfort of another human being. He cried like a baby against her shoulder. She soothed him gently, telling him she would be here, she loved him dearly and would help him as much as he needed.

Harry was lost in his own grief, his pain reaching to the very depths of his soul.

‘I must say goodbye,’ he muttered. ‘How can I bear it? How can I bear it?’

‘I know,’ comforted Olivia, wanting to weep for him. ‘Oh, my darling, I know.’

In Changi, Harry had had plenty of practice at merely existing, and over the next few weeks, it was put to good use. He spent mornings with his father in the study that would soon be his, going through every aspect of the vast management task that was the Wharton Park Estate. Father and son spent more time in each other’s company than they ever had before. But there was a poignancy to this shared time, as they both knew the reason behind it.

Harry realised he had never appreciated the complexity of his father’s role. As he learnt what it entailed, his admiration for his father grew.

‘The golden rule – even if you have staff to manage such things as the accounts and the farm – is to be in control. You must check the books and take a horse every week to ride across your land. You understand what I am telling you, my boy?’

‘Yes, Father,’ Harry answered, currently flummoxed by a list of figures in the ledger in front of him. Arithmetic had never been his strong point.

‘You have to be hands-on, and make sure every worker at Wharton Park knows that you are. Your great-grandfather nearly lost this house by being far more interested in the ladies and his port than he was in the estate. The staff ran riot. Remember, a good leader leads from the front, and your Army years will have stood you in good stead. I am proud of you, my boy,’ he nodded emphatically, as if to make up for all the years he had never said it.

So, in the afternoons, Harry would take a horse and ride across the estate. He learnt about the crops they needed for the following year, and machinery that needed replacing. He counted cattle and pigs, and visited tenant farmers, noticing some had sneakily extended the boundaries allocated to them on their deeds.

Harry appointed Jim, Mrs Combe’s son, as his new farm manager. The lad had grown up on the estate and watched his father do the same job before him. Jim had no experience managing people, but he was young, bright and glad of the opportunity. Following his own father’s advice, Harry felt it was most important to find someone he could trust.

Late into the night, Harry studied the accounts. It gave him something to focus on, and a reason not to join Olivia in the bedroom before she was asleep. He realised very quickly that the estate finances were even worse than his mother had thought.

By the end of the summer, Harry felt he knew every hectare of the estate, how much income Wharton Park could expect from selling the remaining crops and cattle, and what had to be spent on replacing machinery and restocking. Olivia had also pointed out that some of the workers’ cottages were in urgent need of repair, but that would have to wait. The big house itself needed thousands spent on it.

Harry had calculated that he would need to borrow ten thousand pounds to start putting the estate back on its feet. And it would be two years before it showed any kind of profit, and he could begin repaying the loan. It was going to be a long haul …

He sighed and checked the grandfather clock, which ticked quietly in the corner of his father’s study. It was half past two in the morning. He thought then, as he did every night, of Lidia and where she might be now. It was already morning in Bangkok. Lidia would be sitting at the reception desk, smiling and charming the new guests …

And dreaming of Harry coming back to her soon.

He removed some notepaper from his father’s drawer and, as he did every night, penned her a few lines of love. He sealed them in an envelope, ready to give to Bill in the morning. He no longer talked of the future, tantalized her with what could never be, but told her only how much he loved and missed her.

Her letters to him arrived sporadically, but he searched for them every day under the orchids in the hothouse.

Harry sighed as he turned off the lamp on the desk and headed for the door. He felt he had already served a life sentence in Changi; now it seemed he had to serve it again, here at Wharton Park.

44

As summer turned to autumn, and the chill of winter approached, Christopher became too weak to leave his bed. Adrienne sat with him most of the day, talking and reading to him as he dozed, and leaving his side only when either Harry or Olivia came to relieve her.

And then, in December, just before Christmas, Christopher suffered another severe heart attack. He died a few hours later, having never recovered consciousness.

The funeral took place on the day before Christmas Eve, in the small church on the estate where Harry and Olivia had married. It was well attended: over three hundred people came to pay their respects. His body was entombed in the Crawford family vault, to lie for eternity alongside his forefathers.

Olivia watched Harry out of the corner of her eye as he welcomed the mourners into the house after the service. His sad, drawn features betrayed his pain: at that moment she thought she had never loved him more. Even though he was still unresponsive and distant, and her attempts to make him talk about his experiences in Changi had failed miserably, he often came to her late at night and made love to her.

She frequently woke to find bruises on her body, and felt a dull ache inside her from being taken by him so roughly. At some point, she would tell him he needed to be more gentle, but for now, under the circumstances, she let him be. The contact and solace it brought her were too important to sacrifice.

Christmas was a sombre affair; although, bearing in mind her delicate nature, Adrienne proved surprisingly stoic about her loss. Perhaps she was helped by the fact she’d had time to prepare for it and had said everything she needed to say to her beloved husband before he had died.

When the bells of local churches pealed in the New Year, Olivia, for one, was grateful. She could only pray it would bring Harry the peace and happiness he so desperately needed.

In early January, as the first harsh snow of winter fell on Wharton Park, Harry knew he must contact Lidia and break the news that he would not be returning. Whilst the truth existed only in his head, and Lidia was unaware of it and still sent him loving letters, Harry had allowed himself to imagine that being with her was still a possibility, in order to alleviate his darkest moments.

But there had been an edge of anxiety in her most recent missives; she said there was so much to discuss on his return, and had asked him tentatively when he thought that might be. He also noticed she was no longer using headed paper from the Oriental Hotel and a twinge of concern insinuated itself into his thoughts.

Unable to tell her the truth, he wrote and explained that his father had died and there was much to sort out before he could leave to be with her.

And then her letters stopped altogether.

And Harry knew something was wrong.

On a whim, he went to the post office in Cromer and sent a telegram to Madame Giselle at the Oriental, asking of her health, but also of Lidia’s.

Two days later, he received a reply:

HARRY STOP ALL WELL HERE STOP WHEN DO YOU RETURN STOP LIDIA LEFT SUDDENLY TWO MONTHS AGO STOP NO FORWARDING ADDRESS STOP REGARDS GISELLE

Harry held on to the counter to steady himself. He felt sick, dizzy …

Back at Wharton Park, he went to his study, closed the door and sat at his desk with his head in his hands. He took some deep breaths and tried to pull himself together.