The Orchid House (31 page)

‘Right,’ Kit nodded. ‘So you’re off?’

‘Yes.’

‘Okay. Just thought I’d come and say goodbye.’ He shrugged. ‘Apologise again for my insensitive behaviour.’

Julia perched on the bench next to him. ‘Kit, please, I understand, I really do.’

‘Do you?’

‘Yes.’

Kit studied his fingers. ‘Good. Actually, Julia, I didn’t really come to say goodbye.’

‘No?’

‘No.’ He looked up at her and smiled wanly. ‘In fact, my intention was to prostrate myself at your feet and beg you to stay.’

‘Oh.’

‘Yes. I had the whole speech planned out. I was going to plead with you to give me a chance. To tell you I love you, and that I understand we would need to go slowly, for your sake. That I’d do anything to at least give us a try because, certainly for me, I know this feeling only comes once or twice in a lifetime. And it’s killing me to have to let it go. Selfish, I know,’ he added. ‘I decided in the early hours of this morning, I wouldn’t give up without a fight. So here I am. I was just bemoaning my normal bad luck that I’d obviously missed you. And, in fact, I haven’t.’

‘No. Looks like you’ve been given a second chance, Kit,’ she whispered, almost to herself.

‘Yes! Goddammit! You’re right! So –’ Kit knelt down in front of her and took her hands in his – ‘here goes: Julia, please don’t go back to France. I want you to stay here, with me. I love you, I really do. And I’m … desperate!’ He chuckled sadly. ‘Give me another chance, please, and I’ll never let you down again, I promise.’

‘Oh, God, Kit – I –’ She looked at him, trying to think rationally. Then, remembering Annie’s words about not analysing, she asked her heart what it wanted. Finally she said:

‘Okay.’

‘Okay?’

‘Yes, okay.’

‘You mean you’ll stay?’

‘Yes, for now, anyway. Maybe we should give us a try? What do we have to lose?’

‘Oh my God! Are you serious?!’

‘Never more.’

‘I’ll stand up then. My knees are killing me.’

Kit did so, at the same time pulling Julia into his arms. ‘I promise, sweetheart, I will look after you for as long as you want me to.’

‘And I’ll look after you too.’

‘Really?’ He tipped her chin up to look at her. ‘That’ll be novel,’ he smiled, kissing her nose gently. ‘You mean we can look after each other?’

‘Yes. Especially as we seem to suffer from the same … afflictions.’

‘Two basket cases together, you mean?’

‘Something like that,’ she murmured as he covered her face in kisses. She pulled away, spying the taxi driver leaning against the back of his car, arms folded, surveying them. ‘Better go and retrieve my holdall and tell Bob he can go home.’

‘Yes. And then, my darling Julia, I’m taking
you
home.’

‘Where’s “home”?’ Julia asked, confused.

‘To Wharton Park, of course. Where you belong.’

PART TWO

Summer

31

Wharton Park

Sometimes, when I wake to see the early morning sun streaming in through the unshuttered windows of Wharton Park, I find it difficult to believe I feel the peace and contentment I believed would never be mine again.

Yet here I am, basking like a cat as the warmth hits my face, turning to see Kit’s face on the pillow beside me. His hair, which I insisted he should cut so I could see his eyes, has defied the hairdresser’s scissors and a lock of it is falling over one closed lid. An arm is thrown back above his head, indicating total abandonment and trust in his surroundings.

I love watching him sleep in the morning and have the opportunity often, given that I usually wake first. It is my secret time, when I can cast away my fear and simply enjoy him. He knows nothing of these moments – he is an innocent victim of sleep – and does not realise I am studying every detail of his face and logging it in my memory.

I’ve learnt recently how important these things are. I can no longer picture my husband’s face – only a vague outline, a shape in which the finer details have become blurred and undefined.

When I have finished my study, I lie back and gaze at the room in which so many generations of Crawfords have slept. I doubt it’s changed since the day Olivia Crawford walked into it on her wedding night, seventy years ago. The once magnificent hand-painted Chinese wallpaper has faded from a warm, buttery yellow to a blanched and dreary shade of rice pudding. The butterflies and flowers adorning it are now shadowy images of their former selves.

The heavy, mahogany dressing table, with its three-sided mirror, sits along one wall. It is so ugly that no one wanted it in the contents sale, so I reinstated it where it belongs. I sometimes imagine Olivia sitting at it, putting on all the make-up a girl had to wear in those days, with Elsie patiently styling her hair.

I creep out of bed so as not to disturb Kit, and the carpet beneath my feet is threadbare, though around the edges of the bedroom one can see the thickness of the original weave.

I make my way to the bathroom, the floor covered in cracked linoleum, the bathtub with its snail-trails of green limescale behind the tarnished tap.

As I dress, I smile to myself, simply because I am at Wharton Park. Clumsy, dysfunctional and irritating in its unpredictability, it reminds me of a toddler who has not received enough attention from its mother, and yet is so endearing, one cannot fail to be won over by its charm.

And as I tiptoe back through the bedroom to go downstairs and put the kettle on, I think how much I love it here, with Kit. And how I feel I have come home.

Julia sat on the terrace of Wharton Park in the warm, early morning air and looked down on to the garden below her. June had always been her favourite month. It was the moment when flowers revealed their beauty hour by hour, blossoming into their short, perfect lifespan. The trees across the park hung heavy with leaves – so many different hues of green – set against the clear, soft, blue skies of an English summer.

She took her coffee and walked towards the crumbling steps into the garden – Adrienne Crawford’s creation – and smelt the almost sickly scent of the jasmine planted along the terrace. They, like the rest of the garden, had been neglected for years; only the lawns were granted a cursory cut by the lone gardener, who had far too many acres to maintain to worry about individual pruning and clipping. The roses, set in their beds around the fountain, were now a sprawling, overgrown mass. But apparently unperturbed by this neglect, they still bloomed untidily into obscenely large, bulbous pink flowers.

Gabriel had loved flowers …

Julia smiled sadly as she remembered how he’d appear in her study, his chubby hand clutching a motley collection of wilting wild orchids and lavender, which he and Agnes had found on a walk into the surrounding French countryside.

‘
Pour tu, Maman.
’ He’d hand them to her so proudly and Julia would make a big fuss of putting them in a glass, their stems uneven lengths where he had torn them clumsily from the plant.

She thought how much Gabriel would have loved it here at Wharton Park. He’d always been an outdoor child, just like his mother, and sometimes she’d tell him stories of the beautiful house in England she’d visited as a child. And how, one day, she would take him there and show him.

Julia sighed heavily. That was never to be.

Walking on, her fingers itched to set to work and restore this wonderful haven to its former beauty before it was too late.

‘Grandfather Bill would be turning in his grave,’ she told the cherub, still perching listlessly atop the fountain that played no more.

Walking slowly back to the house, Julia felt as though she had stepped through a looking-glass. There was still the pain of losing her husband and her precious little boy, and guilt, and fear, for daring to be happy. Yet Kit’s love for her felt as undemanding as Xavier’s had demanded.

‘Sweetheart,’ Kit had murmured as they lay entwined on the bed after they’d first made love. ‘I understand it’s still early days for you, and what a leap of faith you’ve taken to be here with me. I know you need time to heal. If you feel like some space, or I crowd you, I won’t be offended if you want to retreat.’

Three months on, and Julia had not yet felt the need. Besides, the house was vast enough to allow her as much space as she could want. And, as Kit had refused Mr Hedge-Fund’s offer and was out on the estate most days, she was often alone here.

But never lonely, she thought, as she climbed up the steps and passed through the door that would lead her eventually into the kitchen. It was strange how, even though she had rarely set foot inside the house itself and never been upstairs, it all felt familiar and wonderfully comforting. Perhaps it was to do with hearing Elsie’s vividly told story of the past, and because the house had changed so little since the days she’d described. Julia loved the atmosphere and had spent hours wandering along corridors, becoming familiar with every nook and cranny, each faded quilt cover and dusty ornament which evoked the history she’d heard so much about.

It was midsummer too, and many of the things that needed fixing in the house were far less noticeable than they would be in winter: the leaking roofs, for example, and the archaic heating which sent a mere trickle of warmth through the cast-iron radiators, doing little to heat the bath water either.

The fact that she had all but moved in to Wharton Park with Kit had never been ‘officially’ discussed. It had just happened naturally, out of mutual consent. Since the drama of their initial courtship, everything between them had been breathtakingly easy. They had slipped into a relaxed and comfortable routine: Kit would arrive in the kitchen for their six o’clock sundowner, and they would chat about their day as they pottered about the kitchen, sharing the task of cooking supper. Julia was determined to learn and was enjoying her new-found skills in the culinary department. Afterwards, they’d often retire early to bed to make love. They rarely went out, neither of them needing the stimulation of other company, preferring instead to spend time together and alone.

And Kit really did seem to understand that the sadness of what she had lost would sometimes creep in, often unexpectedly. A memory, perhaps prompted by an indirect comment, would render her quiet and thoughtful. He was remarkably unthreatened by her past, acknowledging and respecting it, and never forcing her to talk about it unless she indicated she wished to.

Their relationship was completely unlike the one she’d shared with Xavier: none of the grand statements her husband had so loved making, no volatile arguments, and little of the emotional insecurity or mood swings that had made Xavier so exhausting, but exciting to live with.

There was a stability between them, Julia thought, as she walked upstairs to make the bed, a quiet contentment, which didn’t have the drama of her former relationship but engendered tranquillity, which she knew was healing her more as each day passed. She hoped her presence in Kit’s life was having the same effect on him.

She had discovered recently that, rather than wasting his life being ‘self-indulgent’ – as he’d initially described the past ten years – Kit had spent his time abroad working tirelessly for charities around the globe. He had used both his academic and medical skills to help those most in need of them.

‘The fact I didn’t value my own existence enabled me to go into places most wouldn’t venture,’ Kit had added, when Julia had listened in wonder and admiration to stories of his adventures in the most dangerous hot spots on earth. ‘Don’t praise me, Julia, I was simply running away.’

Whatever Kit’s reasons, his experiences had made him a far wiser and braver man than he gave himself credit for. Julia, occasionally irritated by his continual self-deprecation, told him so. And, slowly, Kit began to open up about a possible path he’d envisaged for his future; that of counselling and treating children damaged by events beyond their control.

‘I’ve seen so much innocent suffering,’ he’d sighed one night over supper. ‘If I’m honest, I think caring for all the kids I met on my travels was a substitute for not daring to commit myself on a personal level again. They needed me, but I could always up and leave and move on. There was nothing altruistic about it.’

‘I understand, Kit,’ Julia had answered, ‘but I’m sure they benefitted from having you, even for a short time.’

‘Well, I learnt that kids are the building blocks of the human race. If they’re wrong, the next generation will be wrong too. And, in retrospect, out of all that pain I witnessed, I admit I’ve found something I’m passionate about.’

So Julia had encouraged him to apply for the appropriate course to convert his time at medical school into what he needed, to allow him to practice child psychology professionally.

‘When this house is sorted out, I just might,’ he’d agreed. Then he had turned to her. ‘Long time since I let myself be nagged by a female.’

‘Kit! I –’

He had rolled over in bed and tickled her mercilessly. Then he’d looked down at her, his eyes serious. ‘Thanks, Julia, for caring enough to do it.’

‘We are sharing a moment in time,’ Kit had announced one night, as they lay together outside in the park, staring up at the full moon. ‘Like the universe, there is no beginning or end. We just
are.
’

Julia loved that thought. And held on to it when her mind turned to another problem currently haunting her. The serenity of Wharton Park and Kit’s undemanding love had gone a long way towards rehabilitating her, but every time she approached the drawing room, wrapped her fingers around the tarnished brass handle to open the door and walk towards the grand piano, her courage failed her.

Two weeks ago, she’d taken the train to London to have lunch with Olav, her agent.

‘Well now, I have a variety of concert halls still offering you dates, including …’ Olav had paused dramatically, ‘the Carnegie Hall.’

‘Really?’ Julia had been excited, despite herself. It was the one venue that she had never been invited to before. And had always longed to play.