That Summer: A Novel (11 page)

The garden—although “garden” was far too grand a word for the wilderness she could see from her bedroom window—stretched out the length of a full city block. As she sat there, the world felt very far away. Sometimes, if the windows were open and the wind was right, she could catch a faint snippet of someone else’s television or dinner table conversation. But mostly, it was just the sound of crickets and the wind in the leaves of the trees. From the patio behind the house it might have been a hundred years ago, a world without cars or Internet or electric lights.

“Are you sure you’re all right out there?” her father asked when she called him four days in.

“Fine,” she said. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

Somehow, it seemed disloyal to admit that she was actually enjoying herself, enjoying the hauling and the sorting, and the absence of the grinding self-doubt that came of sitting idle in her own apartment, waiting for the phone to ring with job offers that didn’t exist. She’d been in the rat race for so long. She felt as though she’d stepped not only out of her own life but somehow also out of time.

The contents of the drawers and cupboards aided her on that. Friday night, she stayed up way too late reading through a pile of an old magazine called the
Tatler,
from the 1920s and ’30s. It was better than reading the headlines of the supermarket tabloids. Good Lord, had people actually lived like that? Socialites bolted to Kenya, viscounts eloped with Gaiety Girls (Julia gathered that Gaiety Girls must be the 1920s equivalent of exotic dancers, from the way the magazine went on), and debutantes were caught in compromising positions with members of the Russian ballet. It was fascinating. Also, strangely addictive.

Julia slept through her alarm on Saturday morning and woke up with a 1920s tabloid hangover. She’d meant to explore the garden today.… But first coffee. Pulling her unbrushed hair into an untidy ponytail, she pulled on ancient shorts and tank top—the few 1970s window units scattered around the house didn’t do much to condition the air—and stumbled downstairs to the blessed chrome coffeemaker.

She’d only just dumped milk into the miraculous life-giving brew when the buzzer rang. It took Julia a few moments to realize that it must be the front door.

Who in the hell would be on her doorstep on a Saturday morning? Neighbors, complaining about the amount of garbage she’d been dumping out front? Jehovah’s Witnesses? Did they even have Jehovah’s Witnesses in England?

Coffee clutched firmly in hand, Julia opened the front door, prepared to tell off whoever it might be.

Natalie stood on the steps, a male person in tow.

Julia resisted the urge to swear. She had forgotten about Natalie. It didn’t improve Julia’s mood that she’d been caught in ancient Yale shorts and a tank top with holes in the hem. Natalie, in contrast, was wearing a yellow linen sundress. There were matching sandals, with delicate ribbons that tied around the ankles.

The man beside her looked like he was trying to be anywhere but where he was. Next to him, Natalie looked little and dainty—which put Julia at somewhere near pigmy status. His sun-streaked blond hair suggested ski vacations and tropical getaways.

Julia wished they would. Go away, that was. They looked very pretty together. And she needed more coffee.

“Hi,” Julia said shortly, trying to remember when she had last washed her hair. Yesterday? At least, she thought it was yesterday. She took another slug of her coffee. “So—you decided to stop by!”

“We’ve come to help you,” Natalie said brightly, then turned to the man standing next to her with a swish of her blindingly clean hair. “Welcome to the old family homestead. I know it’s not anything like your old family homestead.…”

“You mean the flat in Fulham?” he said drily.

Natalie gave a tinkling little laugh. “You know it’s not.”

Julia stood in the doorway, feeling decidedly superfluous. Was it really necessary for them to come all the way to her doorstep to have this conversation? Or to make her watch? Her coffee was getting cold and her greasy hair was making her head itch. She repressed the ignoble urge to slam the door on them and go in search of more coffee.

“Would you like to come in?” she said ungraciously.

Natalie flashed her a quick, apologetic smile. “This is our cousin Julia,” she said to the blond man.

Julia held out a hand. “Current owner of the old family homestead,” she said. Just in case anyone was wondering.

The man ignored her outstretched hand. “You’re American.”

Julia let her hand drop. “My passport agrees with you,” she said pleasantly.

“Julia grew up in the States,” said Natalie apologetically.

“New York,” added Julia entirely unapologetically. Let him put that in his pipe and smoke it. The shade of Helen, the ever gracious, prompted Julia to add, “You’re welcome to stand on the doorstep if you like, but there is coffee in the kitchen.”

“Did I hear someone offering a coffee?” Another man bounded up the stairs. He was more casually dressed than the others, in jeans, sneakers, and a striped rugby shirt. His hair was the color of an old penny. “Sorry I took so long. I’ve parked somewhere in the Outer Hebrides.” He turned to Julia. “You must be Cousin Julia. I’m Andrew, Natalie’s brother.”

Did one say
nice to meet you
to someone one might have played with as a child?

“Good to see you again,” she said instead, and Andrew smiled at her, a broad, open smile. She could see the resemblance to Natalie, now that she was looking for it, but on Andrew the features had been rounded out by the proper amount of poundage, not honed to razor thinness.

Julia turned to the blond man, who hadn’t bothered to introduce himself. “And you are?”

Natalie jumped in. “This is Nicholas. Nicholas
Dorrington
.” The last name did sound vaguely familiar, but Julia couldn’t tell whether that was because she’d actually heard it somewhere or because Natalie said it as though she was meant to know who he was. “He knows everything there is to know about antiques.”

Nicholas the Wonder Man pooh-poohed Natalie’s praise. “Hardly.” Somehow, the supposedly modest comment sounded more arrogant than any amount of puffery. “I have a shop, that’s all.”

“A gallery,” corrected Natalie, for Julia’s benefit. “In Notting Hill.”

It just got better and better. “Are you a cousin, too?” Julia asked him.

She seemed to have acquired a superfluity of them recently.

“Oh, no,” said Natalie quickly.

“We went to school together,” put in Andrew. “Shared a room for four long years.” The two men grimaced at each other in what Julia assumed was a male expression of affection.

“The smell of your socks nearly drove me out,” said Nicholas.

“My socks? Your rugby kit.” This was clearly an old argument. Andrew was grinning broadly. He slung an arm around the other man’s shoulders. “Don’t mind him, Cousin Julia. His pong is worse than his bite.”

“I don’t pong,” protested Nicholas.

“Not now you don’t,” said Natalie archly. “But wait until we have you sorting a few cubic meters of rubbish.”

“We”? What “we”? This was Julia’s house, not anyone else’s. Not at the moment, anyway.

“There’s no need for anyone to sort rubbish, cubic or otherwise,” Julia said with a stiff smile. “If you’d like some coffee…”

“Don’t be silly,” said Natalie indulgently, brushing past her into the hallway. “We’re here to help.” To Nicholas, she said, “You can’t imagine what’s piled up. The family has been here since the dawn of time.”

“Or about 1800,” murmured Andrew. Julia decided she liked Andrew. She liked him even more when he said, “What can we do?”

“Yes, let’s get on with it,” said Nicholas, detaching himself from Natalie’s determined attempt to give him a tour of the highlights of the family estate. “I have a lunch to get to at one.”

Julia didn’t miss the way Natalie’s face fell.

She was tempted to consign both Nicholas and Natalie to the basement and the hard labor of carting out ancient electronics and unidentified pieces of rusty something-or-other. After all, weren’t old irons considered antiques and collectibles these days?

That would be petty. And, besides, it looked like Nicholas was just as much a victim of Natalie’s good intentions as Julia was. He wanted to be here about as much as she wanted him here. Julia swallowed her pride and summoned up her better self.

“There are a number of sideboards and cupboards in the dining room I haven’t gone through yet,” she said briskly. She turned to Nicholas. “Would you mind going through and sorting out the good stuff from the mediocre stuff? I can tell Sèvres from Woolworth, but that’s about it.”

“I live to serve,” murmured Nicholas Dorrington.

Yep, and she was Richard III. Julia ignored him and turned to her cousin. “Nat—”

“I can help Nicholas,” Natalie volunteered. Julia felt an unwilling pang of sympathy for her. That kind of crush was so painful. Both to experience and to observe.

“No need,” said Nicholas, and Natalie’s happy mask dropped for a moment. Julia couldn’t tell whether Nicholas was being brutally oblivious or just brutal. “It shouldn’t take me long.”

Implication being that there was nothing there worth spending time on. Charming.

Julia turned her back on Nicholas and concentrated on being extra-nice to Natalie. She didn’t believe in kicking the wounded. “Would you mind taking the desk in the conservatory? There are some family papers and photos in there.”

“What about me?” asked Andrew, presenting himself gamely for duty.

For the first time, Julia’s stiff social smile relaxed into something genuine. “I’ve been trying to go through the bedrooms upstairs. Want to tackle one of those for me?”

“Happily,” said Andrew gallantly.

“I’m off to the conservatory, then!” Natalie said loudly. Just in case Nicholas wanted to know where to find her, Julia surmised. Natalie looked archly over her shoulder at Nicholas. “I’ll call you if I find anything interesting.”

Nicholas made an uncouth snorting sound. “I wouldn’t expect to find any treasures.”

Ouch. Julia might have said the same herself, but it was quite another thing to have this Nicholas person do it.

“You never know,” Julia said tartly. She dredged up Natalie’s phrase from the weekend before. “There might be a Rubens hidden away in here.”

And with that Julia marched away upstairs, the remains of her coffee grimly clutched in one hand. Screw him. It would serve him right if they did find a Rubens.

Hell, she’d settle for a Rembrandt.

SEVEN

London, 1849

“You mustn’t expect to find any treasures,” Arthur told her as their hired hack pulled up as near to the National Gallery as it could manage. “Sir Martin says it’s a sorry lot this year.”

Imogen pulled her gloves up on her wrists. “I know,” she said, with a forced smile. “He says that every year.”

Arthur was terribly proud of his acquaintance with Sir Martin Shee, the president of the Royal Academy, although the acquaintance was little more than an exchange of nods and a vague recollection of their names.

It was through the good offices of Sir Martin that Arthur had acquired his tickets to the Private Viewing of the Royal Academy’s Summer Exhibition. Arthur and, it seemed, half of London. The area around Trafalgar Square was mobbed with the carriages of the fashionable, the already-soot-stained stone of the National Gallery half-eclipsed by the tall hats of the gentlemen and the wide skirts of the ladies as they made their way up the stairs to the East Gallery, pausing to hail acquaintances, speaking of this week’s on dits and last week’s scandal.

Arthur stepped out first, handing out first Imogen, then Evie, wide-eyed and thrilled at being included in this opulent scene, peopled by so many of society’s favorites whose names appeared in the illustrated papers.

The Granthams weren’t part of that world, but it tickled Arthur to pretend to be, for this one day a year. There was something rather pitiable about his gratification at the connection.

But, then, what did that make her? If Arthur was a hanger-on to Sir Martin, she was little more than an extension of Arthur. It was a distinctly lowering thought.

There was no one in the crowd whom Imogen recognized, except for the familiar, rail-thin figure of John Ruskin in his blue coat, engaged in conversation with two men whom Imogen imagined to be critics from the cuts of their coats and the rather dilapidated quality of their hats. The Ruskins had once lived rather near the Granthams at Herne Hill, and Arthur had made John free of his collections. They still dined together, once or twice a year.

“How grand,” breathed Evie, her eyes on the gowns, the hats, the carriages with crests.

“Wait until you see the art, my dear,” said Arthur, shooing his daughter towards the wide stairs. If there was just a hint of reproof, Evie didn’t seem to notice.

As he handed Imogen a copy of the exhibition booklet he leaned a little forward to murmur in her ear, “You were right, my dear.”

Imogen looked at him in surprise, the ribbon of her fashionable new bonnet teasing the corner of her eye.

“About Evie.” Imogen’s husband sighed a sigh that went deep down past the buttons of his waistcoat. “I have been selfish in keeping her so much at home.”

He showed their tickets to the man at the door.

“Perhaps not so much selfish,” said Imogen guardedly, “as protective. Who would not be so?”

Arthur pressed her hand gently and then released it. “I must attend to your counsel more often.”

Imogen looked quizzically at her husband. “It was only what anyone so close to her would see.”

They were through the doors now, surging along with the tide of humanity into the first of the exhibition rooms.

“Perhaps,” said Arthur, smiling whimsically. “But not her old father. Ah, Evie! What have you found there?”

Using his walking stick to part the crowd, he stepped forward to take Evie’s arm before she could disappear entirely into the maelstrom of humanity. Imogen followed along more slowly, hating herself for the small pleasure Arthur’s words brought her. Again and again, they had played this same farce. She had told herself, years ago, that she had given up seeking Arthur’s good opinion, that she had given up on any hope of true companionship. And then, out of nowhere, he would make some small overture, and for the space of those few minutes she would be sixteen again, sixteen and desperately yearning for his affection and his approval.