Chapter Thirty-One
Oxfordshire, four months later.
‘Careful with that!’ Claudia leapt sideways to avoid a swinging beam, then she strode on, Sophie and Betty at her heels. Their skirts lifted clouds of sawdust into the air. The building was a beehive. There was not a single one of her guests who was not carrying, moving, hammering, or singing. The workmen were befuddled.
That’s right. Show them what we can do.
‘Morning, morning, morning,’ she strode past a group cutting curtains, her voice lost in the noise.
‘Good morning, Lady Claudia.’
‘…is ready!’ Sophie yelled in the noise.
‘What?’
‘The dining hall is ready! Chairs arrived…tables laid out…like to see it?’
‘Yes!’ She yelled back.
‘Watch out, paint!’ A man shouted.
A clanking sound exploded in the corridor behind them, followed by laughter.
They all turned sharply into another corridor and strode on.
‘Cat! Cat!’ Betty yelled.
‘Cat!?’
Bill, William’s cat, zoomed right past them, narrowly avoiding a collision. Some of the guests, huddled over wallpaper, burst into laughter.
‘Why is this corridor yellow?’ Claudia asked. ‘It was pink yesterday.’
‘And green the day before,’ Sophie grumbled.
‘Mr Campbell changed his mind,’ one of her guests teased her. ‘ Again .’
‘Oh,’ she smiled idiotically. ‘Isn’t he creative?’
‘Isn’t he costing us a fortune in wallpaper?’ Sophie muttered.
Claudia laughed, and the sawdust made her cough. There was always a bit of extra chaos since William had started helping out, but the atmosphere was all the lighter for it.
‘Where’s your sweetheart, Lady Claudia?’ Mrs White, another one of her guests, teased her.
She knew she was blushing like a girl. There was not a single person in there who had not understood that the two of them were madly in love.
‘He’s on the scaffold in the great hall,’ someone else said. ‘He’s been looking out for you all morning. Barely working. That’s not how we do things here.’
‘Come on, Lady Claudia, don’t keep him waiting.’
‘And marry him, for the love of God! We are tired of reassuring him that you will!’
She suppressed a smile and strode on. When she entered the great hall, she placed a hand on her mouth to stifle a cry of surprise.
It was exactly how William had envisioned it. Under the high ceiling was a dining hall and a living room in one, with round tables decorated with flowers. The walls were lined with bookshelves. Everything had William’s delicate touch.
And sure enough, up on a scaffold, William was animatedly directing some workmen. Her heart turned to warm syrup. He had taken charge of the renovation, and it would have taken infinitely longer without him. When the workmen left, she realised what was behind the scaffold. A statue of Athena twice as tall as him, spear and shield and helmet and all, who seemed to serenely watch over the dining hall. It had not been there yesterday evening.
‘What in the name of God is that thing?!’
Will immediately turned around.
‘Darling!’
His grin was so dazzling that it elicited the usual aaaaaaw from the present. He climbed down the scaffold with the agility of a cat, and within moments he had flung himself into her arms, as though they hadn’t woken up together that morning in his lovely apartment in Turl Street. The apartment she still didn’t dare to call home.
‘Will—that thing …’
‘That thing , my adorable philistine, is a statue of Minerva, goddess of justice and war.’
‘That thing was in the garden of Lord and Lady Fitzroy when we went to their soirée last week.’
His eyes broadened innocently.
‘But my darling, there’s plenty of copies around.’
‘It may well be, but that one is exactly the one that was in their garden. It has still moss growing over it, for God’s sake!’ She peeled off a thick chunk of moss to prove her point. ‘And I saw you sneak out and circle around it.’
He smiled like an angel.
‘Who knows, maybe Minerva didn’t like living in Lord and Lady Fitzroy’s garden. It is so tasteless there, with all those ugly cupids riding winged horses.’
She crossed her arms and arched an eyebrow.
He closed the distance between them and lifted her chin, smirking devilishly.
‘All right, my love, I stole it. What are you going to do about it? Are you going to tie these thieving hands very tight to make sure I don’t get ideas again?’
He bit her ear.
‘William!’ She pushed him off, laughing. ‘Control yourself!’
‘I have to, alas. I still have so much to do today. So what do you think, can Minerva stay?’
‘I think we should return—’
‘Perhaps I should put it to a vote again?’ His devilish grin broadened.
‘Don’t you dare , William Campbell!’
He had put everything to a vote with her guests. The colour of the curtains. Whether Bill should live in the shelter or not. Even whether they should get a Billette for Bill. He had won every single time.
‘Ah, goddamn it. Yes, she can stay.’
‘Marvellous!’
‘Still, how did you manage to bring twelve feet of granite in here?’
‘ Granite !’ He paled, and for a moment he looked like he was about to be sick. ‘It’s Carrara marble! As to your question, you’d be surprised what one can do with a bit of rope.’
‘Oh dear…’
‘Listen, darling.’ He turned serious. ‘I would need to talk to you about something tonight. Are you—are you staying here tonight? Or in our…in our…’
‘Yes.’ She squeezed his hand. ‘I’ll stay with you tonight. In our home .’
‘I am so glad.’ His face lit up. ‘I’ll see you tonight.’
She brushed a kiss against his cheek and left him to work.
‘So…’ Sophie cleared her throat. ‘When are you going to make an honest man of him?’
‘Oh—I—’
‘I think he has more than passed the test. Everybody loves him. We all approve of him, so do us a favour and marry him! Besides, he has taken to it like a fish to water. At the beginning I thought he was doing it just to impress you. But I had to change my mind. His heart is in it, you can tell.’
There was no doubt about that. At the beginning he had been wary around the guests, and he had mostly popped in to take measurements and deliver this or that object. He saw his mother in each one of them, he had told her, and he was troubled and shaky after every visit. But despite she had told him clearly that he need not feel obliged to help out with the renovation, he had persevered, stubbornly, even if he came back dead-pale, and she had not dared say more. The reasons for wanting to be there, planning, directing workmen, and sourcing materials were entirely his own. Perhaps he felt that by helping out with the renovation he was giving her guests the safe and welcoming haven that his mother had never had. The turning point had come when the guests, seeing him around more and more often, had started teasing him about his relations with her. He had begun talking to them, and he had started seeing them as more than their suffering.
‘Seriously, Claudia, what are you waiting for?’
Well, for him to admit that he was tired of it all. Of living in rainy Oxford in an apartment when he had lived in a small palazzo in Rome. That he was bored of her, of her single-minded pursuits, of her stubbornness in involving herself in his work and his business. That it had all been a mistake.
And instead, he looked more in love every single day. And maybe it was high time she accepted that happiness had come her way, and that it looked just like this.
‘Nothing. I am just an idiot. Of course I am marrying him. I’ll tell him tonight.’
It was already dark when she arrived in town. It had been snowing all day, and Broad Street was wrapped in a soft blanket of snow. She turned into Turl Street. The lights in the little shop were still on. Her heart leapt when, through the hazy window, she saw William’s blond head curved over a book. She just watched him for a moment, savouring the sight of the man she loved. The man that would be her husband. Then she knocked and walked in.
***
Claudia was like a warm sun filling the little room. His eyes became a little wet with emotion.
‘Darling!’ He smiled. ‘Look at you, all covered in snow. You’re so pretty.’
‘You are crying! Did something happen? I am so sorry, if I had known you were unwell, I would have come immediately.’
‘I am not crying, and I am not unwell. It’s quite the opposite. I am a little too well.’ Claudia carefully dried his tears with the back of her woollen glove. ‘I am just so happy with you. I am not used to it.’
She looked deeply into his eyes. They had spoken at length about how, for people who had suffered, happiness was never far from the next dark thought. It was so easy to believe that they did not deserve to be happy, that it would all be snatched away as quickly as it had appeared. Maybe one day they would both get used to feeling adored and respected and precious every day.
‘Ah. It’s all nonsense.’ He rubbed his eyes and kissed her forehead. ‘We deserve every bit of it. Of our good fortune, I mean.’
‘Yes,’ she embraced him tightly. ‘All of it. We’ll get used to it someday, I’m sure.’
‘Listen…’ he changed the topic, just to catch his breath. ‘Would you like a bigger home? Our investment with Caiani’s money is doing so very well. By next year, we’ll be able to afford something much bigger than this. What do you think?’
‘I think I rather like it here. And you?’
‘So do I. It is just right to be here with you.’
‘How nice, Will.’ She squeezed his hands in hers. ‘So…this morning you said you wanted to tell me something. And there is something I would like to discuss with you too.’
‘Ah, yes. Something of importance.’ He tapped her nose. ‘But not here. Shall we take a walk in the snow? It’s beautiful out there.’
‘Yes. Lead the way.’
Will donned his coat and his scarf. He checked that her woollen scarf was nice and dry around her neck. As always, he helped her wear her gloves. They exchanged a look.
‘Ah, these wicked hands of yours, Claudia.’
Then they were out in the dark.
They strode off fast. Arm to arm, pressed close to each other against the cold, a blizzard of soft flakes dancing around them.
‘I want to tell you a story, Claudia. One I haven’t told you yet. Long ago, when I worked in that smuggler’s warehouse, I could see a patch of grass from the window. It was an overgrown garden full of rubble and pieces of machines that had not been used in years. But at the bottom of the lawn there were lush, dark green trees, wild and forest-like, and their branches created an archway. On sunny days, beams of sunlight would flood it, making it look like a doorway to another world. A warm, sunlit world where there was neither hunger nor cold, and I would be safe and loved. I imagined crossing that archway so many times and finding myself somewhere else entirely.’
His voice broke. He carried on.
‘All these years wherever I have been, wherever I have worked or travelled, wherever I have broken my back I thought of that archway, swearing to myself that one day I’d cross it. That one day that safe and glowing world would be the world I lived in, and not the one I desperately imagined. When I met you, Claudia, that world began to seem not only within reach, but also fully possible. There have been so many moments already when I felt like I was stepping in it, and beginning to visit it. But since we travelled back together, since I’ve seen you work, since I’ve seen you learn so eagerly about me, my business, and the things that matter to me…I feel like I am living in it every single day. It’s almost too much to bear.’
The Radcliffe Camera library loomed over them, enormous and dark.
‘All these years I have longed to go back to that warehouse and finally cross that archway for real, to see what’s really behind it. I never did. I thought I would not have tolerated the blow of finding that there was nothing, and whatever kept me together would have snapped and I’d have fallen apart. So I kept on wondering what was behind it. The fact is, I no longer do. Because I know, Claudia. I have known it for a long while, but I have not dared admit it to you.’ He turned to her. Her eyes were enormous and liquid. ‘Beyond it, in that glorious world, there is nothing more and nothing less than this , Claudia. You and I.’
‘William, my love,’ her voice trembled, her eyes had clouded with tears. He cupped her face with his gloved hand.
‘I adore you, Claudia. Do you hear me? I adore you! I would do anything for you, for us, and I know you’d do the same. We are invincible together.’ He withdrew the tiniest bit and fumbled with his glove, taking his mother’s ring from his little finger. ‘For the love of God, marry me, Claudia. Marry me because I want to do this for the rest of my life. I want to walk out in broad daylight and call you mine before the world. You, Claudia. My love. My everything. My wife. ’
Her eyes widened, her lips trembled, snow caught in her hair. He fell to his knees.
‘Will you marry me, Claudia?’
She bowed to press her lips to his and covered his face with kisses.
‘Yes! Yes, yes, yes! I should have never kept you waiting.’
She held her hand out to him. He struggled to place the ring around her finger because both their hands were shaking.
For a moment he just stared at his mother’s ring on her hand, where it had always belonged.
Then he pulled her down to him and they collapsed on the soft snow. He heard himself laugh out loud with reckless joy, just before they disappeared in each other’s embrace.