The Last Camellia: A Novel (26 page)

Sadie leaned in to me. “No wonder someone’s stealin’,” she whispered.

I remembered seeing Mr. Humphrey late the other night. The incident struck me as strange, especially after talking to Mrs. Marden about potatoes. “Sadie,” I whispered, “does Mr. Humphrey have any business being in the orchard?”

She scratched her head. “The orchard? Why would he be in the orchard? He’s the chauffeur.”

“Exactly,” I said.

Addison

S
ean took a step toward me, smiling in a way that made my hair stand on end. “Did you think I forgot about you?”

I have to get out of here.

He continued to smile. “Cat got your tongue?”

I inched backward.

“Actually,” he said, “don’t talk. I’ll do the talking. You see, prison time is thinking time.” He was close now, too close. “Time to think about what I’d say to you if I saw you again. What I’d do.” He clutched my wrist. “My, you’re pretty. I watched you getting dressed this morning.” He nodded. “And, I mean, damn, girl. You’re a ten, Amanda. An eleven. But you ought to consider getting some shades in the bedroom there. You never know who could be watching you.”

I looked away from his face, that awful, twisted smile.

“Have you told him yet?” he said, keeping a tight grasp on my wrist. “Have you told him what you’ve done?”

At once, I was fifteen again. Scared. Trapped. I hated that he could reduce me to this level.

“I asked you a question, Amanda,” he said, his eyes narrowing, his mouth forming an angry snarl.

I heard a car on the road. I prayed that it would turn toward the manor.
Please, God. Please, let it be Rex.
He’d called that morning and promised to be back sometime in the afternoon. The engine noise grew louder, closer, until the car passed. My heart sank.

Then, I remembered the keys in my pocket, the ones Rex had left with me. There was one to the front door and another for the car. If I could break free, if I was fast, I could get to the old Rolls-Royce in the driveway. Parked in front of the fountain in the circle drive, it wasn’t far. But could I get there?

“Amanda!” he said again, this time more insistent.

He let go of my wrist, moving his hand to my waist, which is when I broke away. “Don’t call me that!” I screamed, running to the car. Just a few more paces. I heard his feet dig into the gravel, as if in slow motion. I pried open the door and leapt inside. He reached the driver’s side door just as I pushed the latch. I leaned to the other side to lock it too. My hands trembled as I fumbled with the key. It slipped out of my hand just as I felt a sudden impact beside me. Sean had bashed the window with an urn. The glass shattered into a jagged pattern, revealing a hole the size of a baseball. Like an animal that knows its prey is near, he reached his hand through the hole, tugging at the shards. Blood dripped from the window and he cursed me, pulling his hand back. I jammed the key in the ignition and revved the engine, peeling out of the driveway so fast, gravel sprayed into the air.

I saw him in the rearview mirror, running after me, shouting. I gunned the engine.

I wished I had my cell phone to dial Rex, the police. It was only a ten-mile drive into town. I blinked hard, feeling the sting of fresh tears. I recognized a song on the radio, playing faintly through the car’s old speakers:
Good day, sunshine. Good day, sunshine.
The lyrics seemed to mock me. There was nothing about this day that was good or ever could be. Tears blurred my vision, and as I reached to wipe them away, I started to lose control of the car. I’d forgotten about the steep curves on this part of the road. I grasped the steering wheel as the car lurched left. I heard the gritty crush of metal on metal as the car pushed past a flimsy guardrail, catapulting over the hillside.

No, no, please God, no no no . . .

Tall grass and canopy trees hurtled by, and the car hit the hillside with a violent thud and was swallowed whole by the dark forest floor. Warm blood trickled from my nose and left an acrid, metallic taste in my mouth. A bird chirped in the distance, its song pure and sweet—the antithesis of the fear I felt.
No, this isn’t happening.
I tried to lift my legs from the seat, but they wouldn’t budge. Pain shot through my limbs with the intensity of a freight train.
No, I can’t die like this. Alone. So far away from home.
Would Sean find me here? Would Rex? My eyes blinked like a camera shutter clicking through the frames of my life, except the images were mismatched and haphazard: a ragged-looking doll with a rose-colored dress; crocheted white baby mittens, slightly unraveled; a row of tulips, vibrant red; Rex’s smile; a rusty weather vane whirling in the wind.

My eyelids fluttered, fighting to remain open, but when they closed, the welcoming image that waited beckoned me to stay, promising to give me the comfort, the peace I longed for.

The camellias.

I could see them, seemingly endless rows of big, bushy green trees with waxy leaves and showy flowers the size of saucers. Pinks, reds—bursting into bloom, as if they’d been painted by the Queen of Hearts.

Flora

November 4, 1940

N
ovember began with a rare snowfall. The children, of course, were delighted, running out after dinner to build a snowman right in the drive. Fortunately, I’d taken their winter coats out of storage and had them cleaned.

Desmond had joined his father in town for some business earlier that day. They hadn’t yet returned. I’d noticed how they left in cheerful accord. “It’s good to see them getting along,” Mrs. Dilloway had commented while clearing the breakfast dishes.

The children couldn’t get enough of the snowflakes, so I decided to let them play a bit longer before bedtime. Just this once. I slipped into my coat and joined them on the terrace. Janie and Katherine stuck out their tongues, collecting flakes in their mouths, while Abbott and Nicholas were engaged in a serious snowball fight. As the wind picked up, I worried the frigid air would be too hard on Abbott; he hadn’t fully recovered from his illness. “Just a few more minutes,” I said, “and then let’s go in for some hot tea. I don’t want you children to get frostbite.”

Nicholas suddenly stopped and pointed toward the sky. “What’s that, Miss Lewis?” he asked.

I looked up, but I didn’t see anything in particular, just darkness. “What did you see?” I said.

“There,” he said, pointing at a low-flying plane in the distance. Its lights shone through the darkness.

My heart began to race. “Children!” I screamed. “Inside, now!”

I led them into the basement through the servants’ entrance.

“Dear Lord!” Mrs. Dilloway cried. “Do you think it’s a . . . ?”

“I don’t know,” Mr. Beardsley said. “But we must dim the lights, just in case.” He flipped a switch on the wall and the house went dark.

Janie leaned against me, and I could feel her body trembling. “It’s all right, sweetie,” I said. “Everything’s going to be fine.”

“Are we going to die?” Katherine asked.

“Of course not, honey,” I said, though I hoped she didn’t hear the quiver in my voice.

I heard a sniffling sound behind me. I turned around, and in the darkness I could just make out Abbott wiping his eyes. “Father and Desmond are out there,” he said. “What if, what if they—”

“Don’t fret, dear Abbott,” I said. “Your father and Desmond will make it home soon; I’m certain of it.”

Abbott buried his head in his hands, then looked up again tearfully. “Desmond will be leaving for war soon, I suppose.”

“Yes, I suppose,” I said wistfully. In the past weeks, Abbott had warmed to his elder brother, and I was glad of it.

“I’m ashamed of the way I treated Desmond,” he said, “when he came home.”

“Why did you act that way, Abbott?”

He took a deep breath before saying, “I overheard Father speaking to Beardsley in his study after Mum died. They were discussing the business of the estate. He said that Desmond wasn’t his real son, and that he’d cheat
me
out of inheriting the manor someday.”

“I don’t understand,” I said. “How can he not be his son? He’s—”

Mrs. Dilloway cleared her throat. “Perhaps we might talk about something else, shall we?”

“Yes,” I said quickly.

Before bed that night, I knocked on Mrs. Dilloway’s bedroom door. “Pardon me,” I said in the doorway. “May I come in?”

She invited me to sit in the threadbare blue chair while she sat on the bed.

“What Abbott said about Desmond today,” I said, “is it true?”

Her eyes would neither confirm nor deny. They only looked lost in memories. “Lord Livingston met her Ladyship in London at a society ball,” she said. “She was visiting from America, and he fell for her the moment he laid eyes on her. Some say it was her fortune he loved, but that was never the case. He loved her. Madly and deeply. But he didn’t know her past.”

“Her past?”

“She had a son,” she said. “In America.”

“Desmond.”

“Yes,” she replied. “Lady Anna was only a girl of fifteen when he was born. Just a few years older than our own Katherine. The father was a farmhand at the family’s home in Charleston. She wanted to run off with him, but her parents wouldn’t hear of it. They sent him away, and after the baby was born, they put her on a ship to attend an exclusive school for girls in London. She never forgave her parents for taking Desmond from her.”

“And Lord Livingston didn’t know when he married her?”

“No,” Mrs. Dilloway replied. “It tarnished his view of her when he learned of it. He couldn’t look at her the same way after that, especially after Desmond came to live at the manor. His presence fueled his Lordship’s paranoia. He was irreparably hurt, and Lady Anna only sunk deeper into her own sadness. She spent much of her time in her gardens after that. And he, well . . . there were many women.”

“And Desmond?”

“He’d been in America all those years, and I don’t think he was more than nine years old when he came to live here. By the way Lady Anna told it, she loved him at first sight. But Lord Livingston never warmed to Desmond, even after Anna begged him to.”

“And what about you?” I asked. “How did you bear to live here, given the way you felt for—”

“I’ve almost given my notice a hundred times,” she said. “There were moments when it felt too difficult to bear.” She sighed. “But I decided to stay, to devote myself to Lady Anna. It was my penance, my punishment. I promised her I’d look out for her gardens, always, and I’m bound to that.”

“Did she ever know about you and . . . ?”

Mrs. Dilloway looked grieved. “I don’t know,” she said. “But if she did, I pray that she’s forgiven me.” She shook her head, her face deeply distressed. “Women had been going missing in town,” she said. “And, I think she had her suspicions.”

“What did she think happened, exactly?”

“A few of the girls that Lord Livingston had”—she cleared her throat—“
entertained
, well, they vanished.”

“And Lady Anna thought that he had something to do with it?”

“She didn’t know what to believe,” she said. “Nor did I.”

I sat down, feeling weak. “Why didn’t you go to the police?”

She gave me a queer look. “You must not understand, Miss Lewis,” she said. “A servant never betrays her master, no matter what the stakes.”

Addison

D
arkness engulfed me like a trench coat two sizes too big. I squinted, trying to make out the scene.
Where am I?
Crickets chirped in the distance. The clouds had parted to reveal a stream of moonlight that filtered through the trees, just enough to illuminate the spiderweb pattern of the cracked windshield and the spot where my head had made impact earlier.
The accident.
I touched my hand to my face and felt fresh blood. I shivered.
How long have I been here?
Hours? Days?
I tried to lift my legs but they still wouldn’t move, and then I felt a burning sensation in my feet, followed by a deep pain in my stomach.
My God, I’m pinned!

I swallowed hard, and winced at the dry ache in my throat. I noticed a water bottle on the floor near my feet, and I inched my fingers closer.
Almost there, just a little farther.
I thought of the Pilates classes my friend Emma was always dragging me to.
Stretch, Addison.
Finally, my fingertips reached the mouth of the bottle. I grasped it with trembling fingers and brought it up, then twisted the cap off and held it to my lips. A few drops of water trickled into my mouth before I lost hold of the bottle and it fell to the floor, rolling under the seat, past my reach.

The moon disappeared behind a cloud again, and a thunderclap sounded overhead. “Dear God!” I cried. “If you can hear me, please, please don’t let me die like this. Please bring me back to Rex.” I let out a sob. “Please, God, give me a sign that everything will be all right.”

When I opened my eyes, a ray of moonlight shone on the tree branch that had earlier impaled the windshield—a camellia, just a common variety, light pink, with an unremarkable yellow stamen. I’d seen hundreds of them over the years. But that night, I had never laid eyes on a thing of such beauty. Thunder, this time louder, filled the countryside anew, and I watched as a single pink petal fell into my lap. I listened as raindrops began to fall on the roof of the car. At first they made polite pecking noises overhead, and then they grew louder, faster, falling in an angry torrent. I closed my eyes tightly, thinking of Anna, Flora, letting the sound lull me to sleep.