The Snow Globe (12 page)

Throughout dinner, Daisy surreptitiously studied Margot and her father. Mabel had seated the woman on Howard's right, Daisy on his left. Thus, Daisy was forced to speak to him, to them, to make conversation or reply, at least, to their inane questions: How was her head? (Howard.) “Fine.” Was she excited about Christmas? (Margot, as though she were a child.) “Not particularly.”

She didn't mean to be rude, but she felt angry and uncomfortable. And she felt embarrassed and awkward each time Nancy or one of the servants appeared. What must they make of it all? And yet her mother, sitting at the other end of the table with Reggie by her side, seemed fine, quite happy.

“I must say, I absolutely adore your snow globe, Daisy,” said Margot. “Where did it come from?”

Daisy wanted to say
From your lover, the man sitting between us, and you can have it, for all I care.
Instead, she said, “Yes, it's beautiful, isn't it? It was a present from my father.”

Howard smiled, and Daisy realized it was the first time she'd seen him smile in a while.

“Daisy used to think it had magical powers,” said Howard, looking at Daisy and not Margot. “She used to think that if you made wishes over it at Christmas they were bound to come true.”

“How charming . . . And did they? Did any of them come true?”
Margot asked, picking up her wineglass and blinking eagerly at Daisy.

“No. None of them came true,” Daisy replied, watching her father's smile fall away. “But I've only recently realized this.”

“Oh, dear,” said Margot, her voice filled with disappointment. “But one must never give up . . . Perhaps you should make another wish this Christmas . . . In fact, we all should. We should
all
make a wish over your snow globe, a wish for 1927, and then write them down and seal them in a box,” she added excitedly. “Then, this time next year, we can see whose wish came true . . . Now, wouldn't that be fun?”

Daisy shook her head. “I'm sorry. I don't believe in any of that anymore,” she said. And then she pushed back her chair and excused herself.

It was like being trapped in a nightmare, a badly written play where every line spoken was irksome and false, Daisy thought, wandering about the drawing room alone. But every single thing felt irksome to her now, from the cluttered surfaces within that room to the feel of her clothes against her skin. And as the other women filed into the room for their coffee and petits fours, she wasn't sure if she could stand much more. So when Ben Gifford appeared in the doorway and asked Mabel if he might be permitted to have a word with Daisy, Daisy smiled with relief.

“Thank you for rescuing me,” she whispered, closing the door behind her.

“Rescuing you?”

“I'm finding it all rather difficult—with Margot and everything.”

He stared back at her blankly. But when he said, “Can we go somewhere private to talk?” Daisy wondered if he knew, knew everything and more, and was about to divulge some new horror to her.

Benedict Gifford had only recently been promoted to general manager of Forbes and Sons. He had served in the war. Unlike his two elder brothers, uncle and cousin, he had survived two years in the trenches, only to return to lose his widowed mother to the Spanish flu epidemic. Shortly after this he had begun working for Howard.

It had been during the nightmare of the general strike earlier that year that Howard, encouraged by Ben, had gone down to the wharf with Daisy, donned an overall and operated a crane. That was when Ben had proved himself to Howard, Daisy thought, for her father had relied on him to negotiate with the unions.

Ben had visited Eden Hall a number of times and had ended up staying for more than a week in the summer when he'd taken ill with food poisoning—though Mabel had claimed it couldn't possibly be, had insisted it was something he'd brought down with him from London. As he recovered, Daisy and he had gone for walks about the grounds, and she had taken to reading the newspaper to him. The day she'd read about the actor Rudolph Valentino's sudden death, she had wept openly in front of him. They had been sitting together on the bench by the pond in the Japanese garden and he had put his arm around her and said, “I'll be your Valentino.” And Daisy had been sad to see him go,
her
Valentino.

She had received a lengthy letter from him after his return to London, in which he had complimented her on her “uncommon kindness in a world increasingly short of it.”
He had mentioned “the sometime loneliness of bachelorhood,” saying that to be welcomed into a family such as hers, even for a few short days, was a privilege. It was all very formal, and he signed himself off using his full name. She hadn't replied, but she had thought of him. There was something old-fashioned and very decent about him; he was not dissimilar to her father, she had thought.

“What is it?” Daisy asked, closing the door of Mabel's boudoir.

“Please don't look quite so worried . . . I simply want to talk to you, that's all.”

Daisy sat down in the chair by Mabel's desk. Ben stood alongside her, in front of the fire, staring down at the assortment of cards and framed photographs on the mantelshelf.

“But you wanted to talk to me
in private
 . . .”

“Yes,” he said, turning to her. “Yes, I did. I do. But first of all, I need to ask you something. I need to know if there's . . . anyone special in your life . . . A young man?”

Daisy shook her head.

“Good. I was a little worried about
our
Mr. Vincent.”

“Valentine? . . . Why?”

“He's been staring at you rather a lot . . . But that's not the point. The point is I don't trust him, and I don't particularly like him. I wanted to warn you not to be too . . . charmed. You see, I've met plenty like him.” He paused and smiled. “The sorts who claim to be artists and go about in secondhand clothes and ladies' silk
scarves . . . contriving to look poor
and
cultured. I'm afraid our Mr. Vincent's just another bone-idle Chelsea dilettante.”

“You sound a bit sour.”

Ben shook his head. “Not sour, just honest.”

“Well, I don't really know him; I've barely exchanged a word with him. And I very much doubt I'll ever see him again after this Christmas.”

Ben turned away from her and glanced along the line of framed photographs once more. “And what about that chap who lives here—the one who sometimes drives your father?” he asked.

“Stephen. What about him?”

“You told me, told me last time I was here that you and he were close.”

“We are—or rather, we were. But it's changed . . . it's different now.”

She saw him nod. “I'm sorry. You must wonder why I'm asking you such questions . . . You see, your father had words with me last summer, and then again recently, before I came down here. He told me—warned me—that you were too young for any serious attachments.”

“I'm nearly
nineteen
,” she said.

“I know, I know . . . And, you see, well, I have to come clean, have to tell you that I
have
become rather attached, and I dared to hope you might feel the same way,” he added, glancing to her.

Daisy smiled.

“That's a relief,” he said. “I know this might seem a little sudden—unexpected—but I've thought about you a great deal
since I was last here. I'm very much aware that you're still quite young—that I'm a good few years older than you, and that I must be patient, and may have to wait for you to . . . to better understand your feelings, and the nature of love and all that.”

“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.

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 might 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.”