“Shame they’re all in French,” he said.
“Come on, don’t you have enough books?”
“Oh no, there’s always room for more.”
They returned exhilarated from the walk. Antoinette appeared in the hall from the drawing room. “You must need some refreshment,” she said. “Tea or lemonade?”
“Tea would be lovely,” Ava replied.
“Same for me,” said Phillip, following Antoinette into the drawing room where the two Great Danes lay in front of the fireplace.
“I’m going to go upstairs and put my shopping away,” she called after him.
“All right, darling,” he replied. She clutched her parcel, excited by her purchases, and ascended the stairs. As she was walking along the corridor towards her room, a door opened and a hand grabbed her, pulling her inside where it was dark and cool.
“Don’t say a word,” Jean-Paul hissed. Ava was stunned. He had closed the shutters; thin beams of light filtered through the cracks.
“You’re crazy!” she hissed back.
“Crazy for you!” he replied, pulling her onto the bed.
“What if someone…”
“They won’t. Relax, ma pêche. I said I would arrange something and I have.”
“How long have you been waiting?”
He laughed, then looked at her with an expression so serious and so tender that her stomach lurched. “For you, I would wait forever.”
XXVI
The delight of fresh herbs and vegetables grown in our own garden, sown with our own secret magic.
Hartington House, 2006
Miranda sat at her desk. The usual place, the usual music, but while her fingers hovered expectantly over the keys of her laptop, inspiration didn’t come. She had been asked by the Daily Mail Femail section to write about her experiences of moving out of London to the countryside. How the reality had turned out to be less blissful than the vision. She could have written it on autopilot a couple of months ago, but now she felt different. She could hear the children’s voices behind the wall of the vegetable garden and yearned to be with them. Country life was an adventure with Jean-Paul when they were home. He took them camping at night to watch badgers, to the river to catch fish, up to the woods to build camps and light fires, to watch the pheasants feeding and the rabbits playing. Her children, who at first had found nothing to do in the countryside except miss the city, were as much part of nature now as the animals they watched.
As for her, she had grown accustomed to leaving her hair unbrushed and wearing little makeup. There was no pressure in Hartington to look glamorous all the time. It was a relief. She didn’t mind wearing gumboots and, although she still retained a muted longing to wear the beautiful clothes that languished in her wardrobe, she had no desire to return to the frenetic social life that had driven her to exhaustion in London.
She wrote a swift e-mail to the editor suggesting the article be a positive one. The editor replied it had to be negative; they already had another journalist writing the positive now. To hell with it! They’d have to find someone else. “Right,” she sighed, standing up. “That’s the last time she’ll ask me to write for her. Another door closes!” But as she wriggled her foot into a Wellington boot she realized that she didn’t care. I should be writing a novel, not picking away at meaningless articles.
Miranda went out to the vegetable garden where Jean-Paul was planting seeds with Storm and Gus. The children were on their knees, their small hands delving into the earth. Mr. Underwood leaned on his pitchfork, having done very little all morning except stand about making obvious comments like: “I’ll be damned, there’s a caterpillar, Storm.” Or: “Well, that’ll be a worm.” Miranda didn’t mind. She was in good spirits. Jean-Paul was more uplifting than sunshine. In fact, just being near him was a bolt of excitement. He made her feel good about herself. Not that he asked her much about her life—they talked mainly about the garden—but he took an interest in what she said. He encouraged her to learn about plants, to take pleasure from the bulbs emerging from the soil and the small creatures who lived among them. He enjoyed simple things and his fascination was infectious. Miranda soon found herself on her hands and knees planting potatoes and flicking through cookbooks to find interesting things to make with them when they were ready to harvest. She took pride in herself and her home, but most of all she began to enjoy being with her children to the exclusion of everything else. They all shared their enjoyment of the garden and that was thanks to Jean-Paul.
The garden looked magnificent. The blossom was out, the lime green leaves on the trees were turning frothy, birdsong filled the honey-scented air. Fat bees buzzed about the borders where bulbs were now flowering. The wild garden was peppered with buttercups, purple camassias, cowslips and feathery dandelions. In the cottage garden a luxuriant bed of green shrubs grew up with tulips, narcissi and primulas. In the middle of it stood the mountain ash like a sailing ship in a winding river that was the grassy path. Beneath her canopy of white flowers was the circular bench where Jean-Paul sat from time to time, his brow furrowed in thought. Miranda had often seen him there, though what troubled him she was still too polite to ask.