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

“That’s unfair.” Jo took a bite of warm bread. There was a photograph in the Wikipedia file, grainy and indistinct. Ter Braak was curled like a question mark on what looked like a tiled floor, clumps of dirt or perhaps concrete lying around him. His hair was dark. His face was visible in profile, left cheek uppermost; blood trailed over his mouth, to pool on the tile beneath him. He wore a trench coat and what Jo guessed might be a fedora hat, still perched near his head. Gloves. Black leather shoes. Pin-striped wool trousers. It seemed incongruous, all this bundled clothing, this need to protect against a cold that was now eternal. The gun lay on the tile almost too correctly, at a right angle to the limp hand.

Her mouthful of bread was suddenly difficult to swallow; she could not look at the body of this dead stranger without remembering Jock. She coughed, turned away, and felt Peter’s hand rest lightly on her hair.

“Are you all right?”

“No,” she managed. “But don’t let that stop you. Why would the Nazis send this guy to Cambridge, anyway?”

“No idea.” Peter was studying her frankly, a question in his eyes. “I suppose the university was of interest to the Reich — there’s the Cavendish Laboratory, where some of the early atomic-bomb research went on.”

“It all sounds fishy,” Jo declared. She was determined to focus on Ter Braak, not the memory of Jock’s dead face. “We’re not getting the whole story.”

“Agreed. This entry says that the details of the suicide, and the fact that Ter Braak was a German agent, were suppressed until after the war — the government didn’t want to admit they’d let a spy run loose for so long. I imagine what few facts we’re reading are the ones they chose to publish.”

“Exactly. It’s an official version. And I’m not saying that just because I’m American. We know from Harold Nicolson’s letter that this… suicide was somehow linked to Virginia. And to J. M. Keynes. And to his Cambridge friends.”

“Has it occurred to you,” Peter broke in, “that you have a major problem with suicide? You shove it straight out of your mind, like a child who can’t bear to look under her bed.”

She glared at him, open-mouthed. “Damn straight I do!”

“But that’s just foolish. Look — ” He leaned toward her, elbows draped anyhow on the restaurant table. “You seem to find your grandfather’s death a personal challenge, a glove thrown smack in your face. When it’s nothing like that. Sometimes ending one’s life is just a decision . A final moment of chosen closure. It’s about self-control, autonomy . I’ve always regarded Woolf’s drowning in that vein — she was a middle-aged woman who fancied she could see the future, and it wasn’t the one she wanted. Sure, the act leaves unspeakable pain in its wake. But that doesn’t mean you caused it. Why are you clutching so tightly to this notion you failed Jock Bellamy?”

“Because…” She swallowed, shrugged hopelessly. “I should have stopped him. I should have seen how unhappy he was.”

“Was he unhappy for a long time?”

“Not that I could tell. I was clueless enough to think he was fine. But then I told him — ” She glanced away, her eyes filling with tears. “I told him, back in August, that I’d been hired to copy the White Garden. I was incredibly pumped about the job, you know? I mean, this was probably the biggest coup of my career. I’ve only been in business for myself for three years, and Gray’s a huge client, huge. So I called up Jock and said I was flying to England to visit Sissinghurst in a couple months’ time. He’d always been the guy who celebrated most for me, when things went well. He said all the right things. He was pleased and excited for me.”

“And?” Peter prodded, when she didn’t continue.

“But I never saw him again. He hanged himself the next day.”

There it was: The truth she’d never spoken aloud.

“I see.” Peter’s fingers stabbed at his hair. “So you feel responsible. I get it. But I’m telling you, Jo: Let this one go. Jock was, what, eighty?”

“Eighty-four.”

“There you are, then. He’d had his innings. He knew what he was about, that day in the garage. He didn’t ask your permission, yeah — but neither did he shower anyone with blame. He made his choice.”

“And left me to deal with it.”

“You’re being incredibly egotistical, you know.”

“What?”

“Thinking it all revolves around you. That you’re the center of Jock’s drama. I’d wager otherwise, my darling.”

“I am not egotistical!” she cried, outraged.

“Disgustingly full of yourself. He killed himself because of me . I reckon you’re wrong. Perhaps he couldn’t face whatever he’d left behind at Sissinghurst — but that may have far more to do with Virginia Woolf than it will ever have to do with Jo Bellamy.”

At his words, all the vehemence suddenly died out of Jo’s heart. She’d been about to argue passionately that Peter was wrong — that this guilt was completely hers to own, thank you very much, and no reasonable speech of his was going to change her mind. But he was right. Jock had made his choice. And she’d been operating for days, now, on the assumption that it had something to do with Sissinghurst’s Lady.

“So how do we find what’s missing from Ter Braak’s story?” she asked wearily.

Plates of fragrant curry materialized under their noses. Peter took a deliberate draft of beer, set down his glass, and looked at Jo. Had he actually called her “my darling”?

“I say we go dig up whatever Keynes buried in Rodmell that April,” he told her.

SHE WAS A FEW MINUTES LATE FOR BREAKFAST Wednesday, but Margaux felt that was only good business. Marcus ought to be kept salivating when the prize was a previously unknown Woolf manuscript.

Even if the manuscript was partial.

And unsigned.

Stop it , she scolded herself as she smiled at the Connaught doorman, aware of the dazzling effect of her high-heeled boots, slim black leather skirt, and cashmere shawl. Stop sabotaging your own brilliance. You own Marcus Git-Jones .

She strode up to Reception, heads turning in her wake, and purred Gray Westlake’s name. A discreet phone call, while she tapped her lacquered nails on the polished counter. Then a smile and the firm suggestion of an escort to Westlake’s room; the staff of the Connaught was not about to let her wander upstairs to the suite level alone, one of the many perquisites afforded a guest of Westlake’s wealth.

Floating beside the liveried butler, a man in his fifties who might have been mistaken for Mr. Bean, Margaux allowed her eyes to close briefly. She felt something akin to sexual arousal. She had no idea who Gray Westlake was, or how he made his money — only that Marcus had spoken coyly of him. Reverently. As though Westlake must be as fragile as china. And that meant gazillions.

All that cash. Waiting for her . She’d expected to meet Marcus at Sotheby’s, or even at a coffee place on Oxford Street, not in the suite of a potential buyer. The Connaught had recently been renovated, hadn’t it, the whole kit and caboodle tricked out with fresh paint, fresh fabrics, fresh art brought out of storage — the suites were said to be utterly top drawer, respectful of tradition without slavishly imitating it — they’d hired a female chef from Paris, a Michelin two-star, Peter would be envious that she’d even set foot in the place.

But she wouldn’t, she thought hurriedly, be telling Peter about this adventure. Not right away.