The Snow Globe Page 10

  “Love?”

  “Yes, it’s not an emotion that comes easily, not to men like me anyway, but I think I may have fallen in love with you.”

  It wasn’t quite the declaration Daisy had so often imagined. She would have preferred less hesitancy, more fervor. The way Rudolph Valentino declared his heart when he appeared in her room and explained how it had in fact been the lack of her in his life that had contributed to his passing. But standing in the soft light of Mabel’s boudoir on the eve of Christmas Eve, knowing that the world beyond was white and thick with snow, knowing that those within the house were marooned, Daisy thought it all seemed quite romantic.

  “Of course, I shall have to speak with your father,” Ben said now, turning to her.

  “Oh, really, why?”

  He smiled. “Because, dear Daisy . . . I wish to marry you.”

  Was this a proposal? He hadn’t gone down on bended knee, hadn’t actually asked her. And right at that moment she could think of nothing to say. Her mind went blank. Ben stared at her. Then, as he began to lower himself, she said, “No!” And she rose to her feet. “No, I’d rather you didn’t speak to my father—not now, not yet. You see, he has a lot on his mind just at the minute . . . and, well, what with it being Christmas and me being only eighteen, I think it would be better if you waited. It’s all been rather hectic here,” she added, trying to laugh. “Yes, there’s been quite a lot going on . . .”

  Ben straightened himself. He was no longer smiling.

  “I’m very flattered . . . honored,” said Daisy. “It’s just the timing . . .”

  He took her hand, lifted it to his mouth. “That’s fine. I’m prepared to wait.” And then he pressed his lips to her skin.

  Chapter Ten

  Howard sighed and paused by the window. “Completely out of character . . . quite out of character and most inconvenient,” he said, his leather brogues squeaking as he turned and paced back across the floor in his tweeds, an unlit cigar clenched between his fingers.

  It was Christmas Eve and Mabel had vanished.

  “Oh, for goodness’ sake. Does it really matter if lunch is a minute or two late? So much fuss about nothing,” said Iris, flicking at the pages of a magazine. “Only in Little Engerland,” she muttered, referring to their particular enclave of Surrey, her name for Little Switzerland.

  Howard turned by the door and marched back to the window.

  “I think Iris is right,” said Margot (Margot to them all now), and then, in a reassuring, soothing tone, she added, “Sometimes we women do need a little time to ourselves.”

  Iris glanced at Daisy and rolled her eyes.

  “Maybe they’ve gone tobogganing,” Daisy said. “Reggie’s quite lively, you know . . . quite a bit younger than you.”

  It was the first time Daisy had addressed her father without any anger in her voice since the Cigar Incident. She had dispensed with her bandage; the cut in her hairline was healing and had scabbed. And the shadow beneath her right eye—which the previous night she had anticipated to be bruising—had also subsided.

  She saw her father tug at his pocket watch. It was almost half past one.

  “That’s it. I shall have to go and look for her myself,” he said, turning—striding and purposeful, tossing his unsmoked cigar into the fire as he passed. “Ridiculous,” he muttered as he left the room.

  Margot rose quickly to her feet. “I shall go with him,” she whispered, wrinkling her nose in apology.

  Perhaps her mother had run away, like Agatha Christie, Daisy thought. Perhaps she’d already checked in to a hydropathic hotel as Mrs. Margot Vincent . . .

  Daisy lay back in her chair. She looked over at Iris. “I hope Mummy hasn’t run away . . . like Mrs. Christie, I mean.”

  Iris laughed. “She went off with Reggie in his car at about twelve. He has those chain things—you know, the ones for snow?”

  “You knew! You knew and you never let on.”

  “Yes, I knew. She said they’d only be an hour or so . . . And anyway, Father’s bloody obsession with mealtimes is ridiculous.”

  They sat in silence for a moment or two; then Daisy said, “Iris, do you hate him?”

  Iris licked a finger, flicked a page of the magazine. “Not hate, exactly . . . more dislike.”

  “And Margot?”

  “Why should I hate her? Latest squeeze, dear. Here today, gone tomorrow . . . back another day.”

  “Mummy said she’s been around for years, that she and Daddy were once sweethearts . . .”

  “Yes, she’s probably the one he goes back to. A sort of filler-in, you know.”

  “Filler-in?”

  “When there’s nobody else, between the others.”

  “Does he have others?”

  Iris shrugged. “One imagines so.”

  “I see . . . And does Lily know?”

  “Haven’t the foggiest,” said Iris, putting down the magazine and yawning. “Although . . .” She paused. “I rather think she must . . . But you know her; she’ll never comment on anything much, other than which one of her friends is in the Tatler or what she’s read in the Daily Mail. And what does any of this matter to her? She has her own home, own life now.”

  “But what about Mummy? Do you think she knows?”

  Iris tapped the end of her cigarette on its enamel case and pushed it into her cigarette holder. “She must know. You said she’d invited her.”

  Daisy nodded. “That’s what she told me. But I think she did it simply because Margot and Daddy are old friends and she thought it would be nice for him.”

  “Daisy,” said Iris, elongating the name and shaking her head. She flicked the silver lighter and lit her cigarette. “But I suppose that’s marriage for you,” she said with a voice full of smoke. “And that’s men for you, darling. You need to learn.”

  “But they’re not all the same. They’re not all like Daddy.”

  Iris snorted and rose to her feet. “Really? And of course, you would know.”

  “You’re so cynical, Iris . . . so anti-men.”

  “And with good reason. Look at your father.” She glanced over at Daisy. “What a fine example he is.”

  “He’s your father, too. And anyway, he’s not all men.”

  “No, he’s not—thank God.” She walked over to the window. The ledge outside was thick with snow. She said, “I rather think you need to get away from here . . .” She turned to Daisy. “You should come and live with me . . . come and live with me up in town. We’d have a wizard time, you know? I’d take you to Marcel and get your hair cut; get you into some fabulous new clothes, make you up and make you beautiful. And we’d be able to go dancing—go dancing every night. God, I adore dancing.” She began humming a tune and shimmying, that way she did. “Or I suppose you could marry,” she said, “use that as your ticket out of here. Not that it would be a ticket to freedom, mind you . . . but I suppose you could get divorced if you didn’t like it, or him, or whatever.”

  “Iris!”

  “What?”

  “One does not get married to become divorced!”

  After that, Daisy didn’t want to tell Iris about Ben’s declaration of the previous evening—though she would have done normally, would have told Iris before anyone else. But nothing was normal anymore. And to mention Ben’s proposal now—after what Iris had told her, and after everything she’d just said—seemed discordant and badly timed. And that’s what she thought of the proposal: badly timed. It was the reason she had asked Ben to wait. Wait until things calm down, she had thought; wait until things are back to normal.

  But what was or had been normal was all a lie, according to Iris. And if it was all a lie and her world had been built on lies, how was she to know what was true and real, or what she felt? But what would happen if she didn’t say yes? There might never be another proposal of marriage. It m
ight be the only one. She had recently read a novel where a woman had refused a marriage proposal in her youth, never to receive another, realizing too late that the man who had asked her had been the one.

  She glanced over at Iris, who was still humming, still shimmying. Iris’s movement and tune were reassuring. Iris was always reassuring.

  Daisy went and stood with her sister by the window. Outside, Howard slid and staggered about in the snow, looking lost and pathetic; and they could hear him: “Mabel! Mabel!”

  “Do you think he has any other children?”

  “It’s quite possible, I suppose,” said Iris.

  “I told you what Nancy said, about another child.”

  “Well, then, you know, don’t you?”

  Daisy nodded.

  Iris sighed. “Someone needs to go and tell Mrs. Jessop that lunch will have to be delayed,” she said. “And I’d rather it wasn’t me.”

  Mrs. Jessop had left Hilda to keep an eye on things so that she could step into the larder to have a moment and a sit-down. She kept a stool there for that very purpose and knew full well that Nancy used it too. She’d been having a little daydream about her retirement, thinking of that place by the sea. Somewhere near Brighton . . . A new bungalow, perhaps, with fitted carpets and a modern bathroom. She could already picture it: the trimmed privet hedge and white painted gate, the south-facing bay window with its broad sea view.

  She’d have a three-piece suite, one in dark green velvet like Madam’s, a nice dinner service—Wedgwood or Crown Derby, she thought—and a good bed with a proper horsehair mattress and a headboard. And she’d have navy blue curtains with long tasseled silk fringes in the front room, the one with the big bay, and a Turkey rug and her mother’s whatnot with all of her Royal Doulton ladies on it. It would be nice to have them all out, be able to display them all properly, she thought. She had only a few out in the cottage, and they were not her favorites. Her favorites remained wrapped in tissue paper inside their boxes, though she sometimes liked to get them out to look at and imagine, particularly Annabella with her large hat and swirling pink dress and basket of flowers. She liked to imagine herself as Annabella . . . carrying her basket of flowers, holding on to her hat as she walked across the windswept field, toward him . . . Michael.

  The only person she had ever shown her ladies was Nancy—because Nancy liked things like that and could appreciate them. Nancy had been surprised, as Mrs. Jessop knew she would be, said they must be worth a fortune, as Mrs. Jessop knew they were. Nancy had said that they were the most beautiful figurines she had ever seen. And it was no surprise to Mrs. Jessop that, after she’d shown Nancy all seventeen of them, and after she’d asked which was her particular favorite, Nancy hadn’t had to think long before saying, “Oh, well, I think it has to be Annabella.”

  Poor Nancy, Mrs. Jessop thought now. It hadn’t been easy for her losing John . . . losing a future. But Nancy had coped, got on with it; they all had. They’d had no choice. Luckily for her, she had a husband and a son. She had a family.

  Mrs. Jessop didn’t listen to gossip, particularly not where Mr. Forbes was concerned. Speculation had always poured in the kitchen, and it stood to reason with someone like him, successful and handsome. Powerful. And of course women would throw themselves at him . . . and what was he expected to do? He was a man, after all: only flesh and blood. And actresses? Well, it’s what they were known for.

  Nancy, who had seen Mrs. Vincent close up, spoken to her, unpacked and put away her clothes—“A lot of large items of silk lingerie,” she’d reported to Mrs. Jessop the previous evening—reckoned the actress wasn’t really Mr. Forbes’s type at all. She had told Mrs. Jessop that the woman was big, too large, and nothing like Mrs. Forbes.

  “So you don’t think there’s anything in it?” Mrs. Jessop had asked Nancy in a whisper.

  “I’m not saying that . . . I mean, there must be, mustn’t there? No smoke without fire. But I can’t fathom it. Really, I can’t. And who invited her? That’s what I’d like to know.”

  “Well, he must’ve done. Mrs. Forbes certainly wouldn’t have . . .”

  “And Mr. Forbes is hardly likely to invite his fancy woman down here for Christmas, now, is he?”

  Mrs. Jessop had shaken her head. None of it made any sense. But then marriage—all marriages, including her own—remained something of a mystery. And she knew that neither she nor Nancy, despite all their reading, were experts in the field of romance.

  “Maybe that’s how it works,” she’d suggested, not quite knowing what she meant.

  Nancy had stared at her, wide-eyed. “How what works?”

  “Marriage.”

  Mrs. Jessop closed her eyes for a moment. She had long ago realized the impermanence of earthly relationships, but from time to time the realization of her life came to her with sudden new pain. She would be fifty-three on her next birthday, and she would, she thought, still like to share something of herself with someone. To be held and loved once more.

  “I knew I’d find you here,” said Nancy, opening the larder door. “No, don’t rush. Mrs. Forbes has apparently been delayed . . . though no one seems to know where,” Nancy added.

  Barely a mile away from Eden Hall, sitting in a car by the gateway to a cemetery, snow falling on the windscreen, the engine running to keep them warm, Reggie Ellison handed Mabel a small gift-wrapped box.

  “A very small token of my . . . ,” he said, without finishing the sentence.

  Mabel unwrapped the package slowly, lifted the lid, then looked up at him and smiled. “Oh my, they’re beautiful, Reggie. Thank you.”

  The only man to have ever given Mabel jewelry was her husband, and though she wasn’t sure what significance the gift held, she knew she had to accept it, and graciously.

  Minutes earlier, Mabel had placed the wreath upon the snow-covered grave and then stood silently in contemplation and prayer. She had not cried.

  Reggie had been the one to persuade her to visit, had told her that she must and had promised to drive her there. It hadn’t been easy. It was the first time she had visited in more than six years.

  “I wish I’d been here for you then,” said Reggie.

  Mabel shook her head. “That time’s all a blur to me now,” she said. “I was so utterly lost . . . How could I grieve for a son I’d known and loved for weeks when so many were grieving for sons they’d known and loved for years, decades? I couldn’t . . . I didn’t. And Howard was in London . . . and I had the girls to think of . . . I cried in private, of course, and I slept a lot,” she said, turning to him, trying to smile. “I think I slept through an entire year . . . Yes, it was a queer sort of twilight existence, and if it hadn’t been for the girls . . . well, I think I’d have run away.”

  Mabel had never spoken about that time before, not to Howard, not to anyone. Her hands trembled as she spoke, as she fiddled with the tissue paper wrappings of her gift. And when Reggie placed his hand upon hers and stared back at her with tears in his own eyes, it seemed to her as though he understood her in a way Howard did not, never had and perhaps never would.

  “Do you still want to run away?” Reggie asked.

  Mabel nodded. “Sometimes.”

  “Then perhaps you should . . . Perhaps you should run away, for a little while, at least. I think it’d be very good for you.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Christmas Eve luncheon was a strange affair to Daisy’s mind. Howard remained almost completely silent, staring down the long table with mournful brown eyes at his wife. Like one of the spaniels, Daisy thought. Mabel, on the other hand, appeared brighter, breezier and unusually effervescent. She appeared to find everything amusing. Even when Ben knocked over the gravy boat, soaking the white linen in glutinous brown liquid, she simply smiled and shrugged her shoulders.

  Margot barely spoke. She sat next to Howard—looking quite beautiful, Daisy thought—push
ing about her food with not exactly a frown but a sort of pouted, concentrated mouth. Reggie, sitting on Mabel’s right, was the one in command, or so it seemed to Daisy. The one to ring the bell and explain “the sinking of HMS Gravy”; the one to pour the wine—Mabel first; the one to ask Nancy to serve coffee in the drawing room. But then he was a major, Daisy reminded herself, used to organizing and planning, logistics and locations.

  When Reggie rose to his feet, rubbing his hands together and suddenly saying, “Right . . . last one to the drawing room’s a nincompoop!”—and everyone, bar Howard, Margot and Noonie, jumped up and raced from the room, pushing and shoving through the doorway, careering across the hallway, then arguing about who was the last to have entered the room—Daisy thought once again how much fun Reggie was, and how unlike her father. She saw her mother fall breathless into an armchair, carefree and laughing, saw Reggie’s tender gaze. And in that moment Daisy felt such gratitude toward him. He had made Mabel laugh. In spite of the bizarre and cruel situation, he had made her mother laugh. There was hope.

  Charades—in which Dosia excelled—were followed by tea, which was followed by the usual quiet period leading up to the dressing bell, when people yawned and sighed and conversations were desultory, meandering, leading nowhere.

  Noonie sat next to the wireless with the Radio Times on her lap, asleep, joining Dosia and the three slumbering dogs in a soft guttural chorus. Mabel fiddled on with threads and scissors and her embroidery, from time to time looking up to smile—at anyone, or at Reggie. Howard hid behind a newspaper, rustling it as he cleared his throat and turned a page—with a surreptitious glance across the room at Mabel, or at Reggie. Margot flicked through the pages of Country Life magazine, from time to time lifting her gaze toward Howard, and Ben sat alone at the far end of the room playing patience on the baize-topped card table.

  The young—as Mabel referred to her children and their friends collectively—sat dotted about in a variety of chairs, fashions and poses: Lily and Miles sat huddled over their wedding album, whispering and giggling; Iris—having been banned by Howard from playing any music—sat quietly, for once, lost in her novel; and Valentine Vincent, who also held a book, watched Daisy playing with a strand of her hair and staring into the snow globe.