“I’m sure Her Majesty would lend us a few if we asked her nicely.” Margaret grinned. “So how about it? Are we all agreed? This will be our project. No more wallowing—let’s put ourselves to work.”
Antoinette glanced anxiously at David. “I’m in,” she said.
“Me, too,” he answered flatly, but he knew his heart wouldn’t be.
“Then that’s settled.” Margaret turned her hawkish gaze on Dr. Heyworth. “Any good with animals, Dr. Heyworth?”
“I’m sure I could put my hand to anything,” he replied with a smile.
“Then you’re in, too.”
“It would be a pleasure to help.”
“Good.” Margaret looked at her watch. “I say, it’s sherry time. Shall I give Harris a call?”
30
The idea, born with a roar, petered out into a squeak. Antoinette talked a lot about the farm shop and bought a book in which she wrote down endless lists of ideas, but she never actually did anything about them. David helped her choose the barn and planned the car park, piggery, and henhouse, but nothing came of those decisions. Dr. Heyworth found a suitable manager who had been a patient of his. He was aptly named Toby Lemon and used to run a chain of grocery stores before he left to start up on his own. The recession had put a stop to his plans, and now he worked for the local supermarket, which he hated. But while there was no business, there was no job to offer him. Margaret tried to fire Antoinette with enthusiasm, but she was aware that only one person could restore her spirit. It was going to be impossible to replace Phaedra.
The summer days lengthened, the crops grew tall and yellow, the weather got warmer, yet David’s heart was as bleak as midwinter. He kept his pain to himself, although everyone knew the cause. Joshua, Roberta, and Tom continued to come down on weekends, but the atmosphere was heavy. Every now and then they’d get all excited about the farm shop and Tom would threaten to leave his job in London and come down to run it, but then they’d leave and a few more weeks would pass before they discussed the topic again.
David didn’t join in the family gatherings as he used to. He remained in his house, reading his books, or on the farm, working. At harvest time he drove his tractor well into the night, carting grain from the combines to the barns. On rainy days he swept the floors and heaped the corn. He took solace from being busy. If he was busy, he didn’t have time to think of Phaedra and wonder what she was doing and whether she ever thought of him.
Often he gazed up at the moon as he walked Rufus around the lake at night and imagined her staring up at it, too, remembering the time they spied on Antoinette playing the piano; the first time he had held her hand; the sudden realization that he loved her. He wondered whether she still cared for him, or whether she’d moved on as easily as she’d moved away. After all, they had enjoyed a mild flirtation. There had been nothing in her behavior to suggest that she’d been “desperately, deliriously, and overwhelmingly” in love with him, as she’d been with his father.
Since she had made no effort to get in touch with him, she obviously had no desire to see him. He vowed to let her go.
At the beginning of September, Antoinette found she was feeling less resentful towards Phaedra. She couldn’t pretend that she didn’t miss her. The girl had brought sunshine into the house. Since her departure Fairfield Park had been cast in shadow, and no one laughed anymore. Even Roberta, at first triumphant that her suspicions had been right, seemed ashamed, as if embarrassed to have been so dogged in her determination to expose her. The truth was that Antoinette wished that Phaedra was George’s daughter after all, and that she would come back and things would return to the way they had been before everything had gone so terribly wrong. She wanted Phaedra back, untarnished.
It was a dull, rainy afternoon when she suddenly felt the urge to visit George’s grave. She hadn’t been there since the dreadful DVD exposure in the spring, and up until that moment she hadn’t wanted to. She had felt nothing but resentment and fury, but now, due to the passing of time, she just felt sad. George had taken so much, and he didn’t even know it.
She drove into Fairfield, parked her car on the verge, and hurried through the drizzle to the church beneath a large golfing umbrella. The building looked gray and austere in the rain. The windows were dark, the big door shut, but there, leaning against George’s shiny new headstone, was a bunch of yellow roses. They glowed out of the gloom like a beacon of hope, and her heart leapt at the thought that Phaedra might have come back. She stared at the flowers, her spirit injected with a shot of optimism. Was it possible that all the while she’d been missing her, Phaedra was right here in Fairfield? She looked around in a fever of anticipation, but the graveyard was empty except for a few mean-looking crows. She dropped her shoulders in disappointment. If it wasn’t Phaedra, it could only be Margaret. She was the person in the family who came regularly to church. She bent down and picked up the flowers. They were fresh and sweet-smelling and covered in little drops of rain.