Стефани Баррон - The White Garden - A Novel of Virginia Woolf

He was just making conversation, she realized; talking about anything rather than the quest that had propelled them from Sotheby’s front door. Already, Jo was regretting the impulse. She had completely abandoned Gray Westlake — who had flown six thousand miles solely to see her — and that complication, Gray in the solitary splendor of the Connaught, nagged at her. He was waiting. She should call. He was her client, for God’s sake. He had said he was falling in love with her. In love with her . No. It made no sense. Integrity , Peter Llewellyn had said; a difficult word. How did you deal honestly with a client who wanted you, body and soul? Something had to be compromised. Your business, your heart, your whole life…

“ — wonderful place not far from town,” Peter was murmuring. “You’ve heard of it, no doubt. Le Manoir aux Quat’ Saisons. Margaux and I took the cooking class with Raymond Blanc — ”

Who was Margaux?

Who was Raymond Blanc?

She pulled her thoughts back to the car. Time enough in Oxford to let Gray know where she was. How long could this consultation take? She’d be back in London by dinnertime. At which point she’d simply tell him: Gray, this will never work. I’m uncomfortable with the blend of business and pleasure.… Her heart somersaulted with desire and regret. Was she insane, to be pushing a man like Gray Westlake away?

I’m not ready . She didn’t think of herself as somebody who’d steal another woman’s life. And she would never want Alicia’s life, anyway. She wanted her own. But Gray —

“… she ought to be able to spare us an hour. Given what it might mean. For her career. As well as ours,” Llewellyn concluded.

He glanced at Jo expectantly, and his expression changed. “I say — are you all right?”

“I haven’t heard a word,” she told him truthfully. “You’d better start over.”

PETER, IT SEEMED, HAD STUDIED ENGLISH LITERATURE AT A college with the odd name of Maudlin.

“It’s spelled like the Fallen Woman in the Bible,” he explained, “but pronounced like a lapse in good taste.” From the offhand and apologetic way he described his years there, Jo concluded it was a great honor to have studied at Magdalen, and that he’d done uncommonly well. She detected, however, disappointment in Peter — that the best years of his life were behind him? That all his hard work and passion for words had ended in a desk at Sotheby’s? Books, he explained, weren’t what they used to be. Collections — the aristocratic hoard of rare first editions, lovingly bound in calf and tooled with gold, arranged on the polished shelves of spectacular libraries — were impossible for most individuals to maintain. They hadn’t the interest, Peter said. Books went to universities, or national libraries with climate-controlled, hermetically sealed chambers designed for the preservation of paper. New money, when it logged onto the bidding website at Sotheby’s, preferred to splurge on wine.

“Burgundies,” he added gloomily. “And, of course, your subscription-only Cabernets. Can’t say I blame them. There’s nothing like a smashing glass of red.”

The Book Expert, Jo gathered, was unhappy. And she suspected the woman named Margaux was partly to blame.

Not that Peter would admit it. He was too careful, still, for confidences. But Jo sensed an uneasiness whenever the English professor’s name came up, as though Peter were two-stepping around a land mine. Margaux Strand . Literature don, Magdalen College. He’d known her for years, ever since they were at school together.

“First-rate in her field, Margaux is,” he said with forced enthusiasm. “A Feminist interpreter, of course. Edits a journal on Women’s Fiction. An acknowledged Woolf expert.” They were cruising toward the Oxford skyline, Peter pointing out the dome of the Radcliffe Camera. “Margaux will tell us whether we’ve got something explosive in your notebook — or just a bomb.”

SHE’D PREPARED HERSELF FOR GRANDEUR — THAT WAS IMPLICIT in the idea of Oxford — but the quiet beauty of Magdalen took her completely by surprise. The college was at the end of the High Street, rising from a park that flanked the River Cherwell; a narrow bridge of Cotswold stone spanned the water, and punts lined the grassy bank. Somewhere, a bell tolled the half-hour; Jo’s watch read three-thirty. She stood by the slow-moving brown water in the still October air, mentally improving the landscape with plant substitutions of her own design, while Peter Llewellyn stabbed at his cell phone; a pair of students in their twenties strolled across Magdalen Bridge, their flutey English voices drifting toward Jo. She almost pinched herself. What was she doing there?

“Margaux says we’re to come up.” Peter thrust his phone back in his coat pocket. His face was rather pale, Jo thought. “Her stair’s just across the quad.”

Chrysanthemums blazed in a central bed. A group of kids, undergraduates probably, strolled beneath the Gothic arches in black gowns. A bicycle whirred by. Gray’s set face, that look of pain. He would order his jet back to New York tomorrow. It was probably better that way. But what about his garden? Would he fire her? Refuse to reimburse all her expenses? Why had she decided to stay at the George? Was there an equivalent of a Motel 6 in England?

“Through here,” Peter said briskly, heaving open a massive oak door to reveal a set of stone steps. “Third entryway on the left.”

MARGAUX STRAND SURPRISED HER. JO HAD FORMED AN image of a tidy but plain woman, with brown hair rather like her own; a no-nonsense girl who dealt in ideas, not things. But Margaux was what Peter would have called smashing . She rose from her desk like Venus from the half-shell, sinuous and tall. Her hair was jet black and fell in waves; her lips were full and red; her eyes were liquid pools. When she smiled, it was as though a curtain had parted on a wondrous world. Jo stared at her, astounded; Peter reached for his necktie.

“Peter, darling,” Margaux breathed, and slid around her desk to greet them.

She wore a simple sheath that fell to her toned thighs, and black Chanel boots that rose above the knee. Involuntarily, Jo took a step back, wanting the support of the wall behind her. The woman was going to kiss Peter. Not just on the cheek — but a full-body snog, fingers in his hair, curves leaning into his frame. “Gorgeous,” Margaux murmured. “You always smell so delicious. Like saddle-soap and foxed pages. Isn’t he delicious?”

She threw Jo a complicitous smile, as though they both understood Peter was catnip to women, and reached out one long-fingered hand. “Tell me all about yourself. I’m so thrilled to meet you.”

“Margaux — Professor Strand, I should say — ” Peter stuttered, his face flaming. “May I introduce Miss Jo Bellamy. From the United States. She’s a client, as I mentioned on the phone.”

“Where in the States?” Margaux enthused. “I just got back from New York last week! Still dead tired , of course — conferences are such a body slam , aren’t they, and then we were clubbing until all hours, I’m afraid. I’ve been twined in the sheets ever since, can’t drag myself out of bed — ” A smoldering glance here for Peter.

Jo struggled to find something to say, but I’m from Delaware just didn’t seem appropriate.

“Miss Bellamy’s on rather a short lead today,” Peter supplied. “Expected in Kent this evening. So perhaps we — ”

“Sit down! Sit down! And let me see your treasure. You found it at Sissinghurst, Peter says? Among Vita’s things? I’ve been tearing out my hair ever since I heard! I spent months going through the Sackville-West papers for my last book — Sapphist Writers in Arcadia . I can’t imagine how I missed your notebook.”