Chapter 6
Juliet enjoyed the short walk home from the pub, hazy from the wine and bolstered by this new information about Léo. Of course he was a love rat. She might have guessed – all that twinkling and then the judgemental face in the meeting – that he was a hypocrite as well. The first to find her lacking when he was the one with the grubby secret. And what of her other predicament? Although she had been rallied by talking to her sisters, she was no less confused. What would a return to Feywood mean for her? Maybe she could find a way to stay in London while still sending money home, lodge with a friend maybe? But that didn’t feel right either. It was as if she had been offered an opportunity for change, something she knew she wanted and needed, but the opportunity came with its own dangers and fears. She sighed deeply as she turned into the drive and picked her way back across the cattle grid. Perhaps more thinking time would help.
Avoiding the house, Juliet skirted around the back and walked across the lawn, pausing briefly to decide which route to take. For a moment, she looked towards the woods, always tempting in their cool, dark greenness, but they were not what she needed today. If she went into the wood, it would confuse her already fuddled senses and beckon her home with the promise of days spent lying on a pillow of moss, gazing into the tangled branches and letting her mind wander for hours, like a teenager. No. It was clarity she needed, and space, and the practicality of the kitchen garden was the place that would offer that. It was worryingly close to the cookery school, but she was prepared to take the risk of bumping into Léo and wouldn’t hang around if she did. She walked determinedly over that way, and once through the wrought-iron gate, headed to her favourite spot, a bench in a cool corner next to a small greenhouse. The beds there were growing no-nonsense produce, spinach and radishes, and she found this grounding, rather than being swayed by the woods or the scented rose garden. She pulled out her phone and switched it off, without even looking at the pull-down menu with its array of notifications. Silence. Peace.
But fifteen minutes later, Juliet had achieved nothing and was beginning to feel frustrated. As she had sat there on the sun-warmed bench, with no distractions other than the odd blackbird pecking away, she had expected the clouds in her mind to part and some sort of revelation to make itself known, but her brain had, she felt, let her down. All it had done was ponder irrelevant and unhelpful things, such as why did the Prime Minister wear that tie last week, what was he thinking? And although this, in turn, gave her an idea for a sketch, it got her no closer to making a decision about her future. When she tried to force her mind towards returning to Feywood, she felt suffused with panic and indecision, and switched to comforting thoughts of work. Maybe a list of pros and cons? But even they were slippery and nebulous. There was no particular advantage to being in London for work, not with all the technology available these days. When she thought about her social life, all that came to mind was the sour taste of a hangover, coupled with the gripping fear of having done or said something excruciating after one too many Old Fashioneds. Conversely, the thought of Feywood, with its shabby beauty and cocooning peace made her think of her mother, and old resentments surged to the surface.
‘This is hopeless,’ she said aloud, standing up and about to march out of the garden, when her aunt walked through the gateway, dressed in loose clothing and carrying several garden implements. She waved when she saw Juliet.
‘Hello, darling, I didn’t expect to see you in here. How are you feeling?’
Juliet sat down again abruptly on the bench as Sylvia came over. On seeing her niece’s demeanour, she let the tools fall to the ground with a clatter, sat down and put her arm around her. Initially, Juliet’s body stiffened, as it always did at unexpected human touch, but then she softened and leant against her aunt.
‘I’m sorry that meeting was such a shock to you. I’m not sure Rousseau handled it as well as he might have done, but he is terribly worried about Feywood and wanted everyone to understand the gravity of the situation. It ended up looking as if it was all on you, but it’s really not like that. We all have to buck our ideas up, him included, and stop hoping that the leaking roof and crumbling bricks will magically disappear while we enjoy cocktails on the terrace.’
‘I know, I do understand, and I want to do my bit. I love Feywood as much as everyone else, and I’m happy to help, but I just don’t know what to do, where to go…’
She trailed off and stared miserably at the spinach. Sylvia squeezed her shoulders.
‘There’s a bigger decision here, isn’t there, darling? You’re on the brink of a change, a deep change, and you don’t know whether to step along its path or stay on your own.’
How could her aunt be so wise, see through her like that? She nodded.
‘I…I can’t see what to do, Aunt Sylvia. I’ve always been so sure before, but now I feel paralysed. London has given me so much, but I know that it is depleting me, too, and I don’t know how long I can keep going there the way I am. I do feel that I would like to take a new direction with my work, but I’m doing so well, and I’m frightened of throwing that away. And coming back here…’
She trailed off into silence.
‘Oh, Juliet, the mistake you’re making – if you don’t mind my saying – is that you are taking all of this far too seriously.’
Juliet looked up sharply.
‘Too seriously? But this is serious, this is my life – I can’t just act on a whim.’
‘Dearest Juliet, you are not going to do anything of the sort. I’m not telling you to throw anything away, it’s more that – oh, you’re so young!’
‘I’m thirty. Thirty!’
‘Yes, thirty, and that is very young. Don’t make a decision that cuts off any choices; there’s no need for that. Why don’t you look at it as trying out a new path, nothing more? You can always retrace your steps if you need to. I know you are talking about serious things – your life, your career – but in a way the decision you make today is no more final than trying out a new hair colour.’
‘Mum always said…’ she whispered. ‘Mum always said that I was flighty, that I couldn’t stick to anything. And now you’re telling me that doesn’t matter?’
‘I don’t think you’re remotely flighty, nor that you have ever been. Your mother was terrified of life, then terrified of death. She loved you deeply, Juliet, and wanted to see you safe and secure. She didn’t understand that you needed to find your calling in a different way from your sisters, to whom their life path showed up naturally and easily. You’re a more complex character, and I think she mishandled you. Don’t shy away from opportunity because you think that otherwise you’re fulfilling some declaration about yourself that your mother made.’
Juliet didn’t reply. She felt shocked in both senses of the word – deeply surprised, but also energised by Sylvia’s words. This wasn’t how she had seen her mother at all, but she knew that Sylvia’s judgement was sound, and she was worth listening to. She had always felt guilty for loving her more.
‘Darling Juliet, come and look at the space above the cookery school, come and see if you could feel yourself living there. It wouldn’t have to be forever. Think of it in a temporary way. Come on.’
The two women stood up and walked through the kitchen garden towards the school. It was housed in what had been the stables, and Sylvia had achieved a remarkably sensitive restoration and repurposing of the seventeenth-century building. From the outside, it had barely changed, other than the addition of some period-style windows. Inside, the original herringbone brick floors remained untouched, and the stone walls had merely been whitewashed, which gave freshness but retained the rustic charm. Two of the original five loosebox partitions remained in place: one sectioned off a storeroom-larder and the other housed a scrubbed wooden table, around which the students could sit to share the meals they had created. The rest of the space had a state-of-the-art kitchen with a large island. Pans and large bunches of drying herbs hung from ceiling racks and tack hooks. A door at the side led to the tack room, which had been converted into a loo and cloakroom for bags and coats. It was the first time that Juliet had seen it, and not only was she impressed, she was relieved that Léo was nowhere to be seen.
‘Aunt Sylvia, it looks amazing. Better than I could ever have imagined. When do you get your first students?’
‘We open for business in a couple of weeks, and we’re fully booked until the autumn. I can’t believe how many people want to come.’
‘I can. Anyone would want to come and enjoy this wonderful place – and your tuition. You’ve been writing for magazines for years, so everyone knows who you are, and how brilliant your recipes are.’
‘And don’t forget Léo,’ said Sylvia mildly. ‘I’m delighted that he took up the partnership with me, and very grateful. It’s helped enormously financially, and he is a big draw.’
‘I suppose so.’
Sylvia smiled.
‘Let me show you the space upstairs, see what you think.’ She led the way to a wooden staircase in the corner that wound up to the floor above. ‘It’s very basic at the moment, but I have some simple ideas that would make it liveable.’
Juliet looked around as she reached the top of the staircase. Basic was an appropriate word, she thought, trying not to show her dismay as she studied the large, bare wooden area. True, large windows had been installed, and it was flooded with light, but that was all there was. Windows and planks. But there was something else, too, something that started to creep up on her as she watched the dust motes dancing in the sun. Up here, under the old beams untouched for over four hundred years, there was history, and peace. No sounds of cars, or sirens, no shouts, just the echo of long-gone hooves, the memory of the swish of hay being forked up, the ghost of an ancient mouse scuttling across the floorboards. No gigantic portrait of Lilith in sight. She turned slowly to her aunt.
‘I love it.’ The words were almost involuntary, then came spilling out. ‘I love it, Aunt Sylvia, I do. I want to live here.’
Suddenly, she could see herself there, her sloping desk under the windows, a bed, an armchair. Maybe she could curtain off a corner to use as a darkroom, when she was experimenting with photography using film. Her painting bench would fit beautifully just there…
‘I’m very glad, darling. We’d already factored in putting a small bathroom up here – you can see that the plumbing is there – and we’ve kept the other loosebox partitions, so we can section it all up very easily. No room for a proper kitchen, I’m afraid, just a sink, kettle and a tiny fridge, but there’s downstairs, of course, when it’s not in use, and anyway, it would be lovely to see you up at the house for meals with the rest of us.’
Juliet nodded.
‘Yes, I’d like that. It sounds like a good balance.’
Balance was something her life had been missing for a long time, and now she wondered if it was this that she had been craving.
‘I’ll organise the bathroom and arrange a few other bits and pieces. Just tell me when I can do it so that there’s minimal disruption to you and Léo. I really do want to do my bit to help save Feywood.’
‘I know you do, darling. The cookery school opens in a fortnight, so if you can get it sorted out as quickly as possible, that would be best. I’m so happy you’ve decided to stay.’
‘I will, I’ll start making some calls straight away.’
Juliet felt suffused with an enthusiasm she hadn’t felt since she was a child. This wasn’t the nervous excitement she felt at the prospect of a big night out with lots of braying, competitive city boys, or the fear-fuelled adrenaline of presenting new work to a newspaper editor. This feeling made her tingle with anticipation as her life seemed to unfold enticingly before her, a landscape of possibilities. How odd, she reflected, that making her life smaller seemed to be having that effect.
Her aunt cleared her throat and broke through Juliet’s thoughts.
‘There is one more thing.’
‘Of course, Aunt Sylvia.’
‘I spoke to Léo earlier and told him that I would like to commission you to do some work for us. He agreed.’
‘What sort of work? I can’t boil an egg, you know that.’
Her aunt laughed, perhaps a little too readily, and hastily straightened her face to continue.
‘Er, no, I definitely didn’t mean help in the school. No, the fact is that I would like to carry on working on our website and literature. We’re doing well for business so far, but it wouldn’t hurt to be even more eye-catching. I’d – we’d – really love you to create some drawings that we can use.’
Juliet inwardly raised an eyebrow at Sylvia’s self-correction and wondered just how on board with this scheme Léo was. She bet he didn’t want her involved at all and was just going along with her aunt to please her. Well, that made two of them. She didn’t want to do anything that would necessitate spending time with him, but she wasn’t going to say no to Sylvia.
‘Of course – what did you have in mind?’
‘Perhaps some caricatures of us cooking, little sketches of the building and kitchen, that sort of thing? I did wonder if we might eventually produce some mugs and aprons and so on, what do you think?’
‘It’s a great idea. I’d be really happy to help. And forget about invoicing me, I’ll do it for you for free, to thank you for your support.’ She waved away her aunt’s protestation. ‘Really, I insist. It will be good for me to do something different – and another way for me to help Feywood.’
‘Thank you, darling. It’s very kind. If we get as far as merchandise, we’ll talk again.’
Juliet nodded vaguely. She was already beginning to outline ideas in her head, rubbing out and correcting her first thoughts about Léo, which painted him in a less than flattering way. There was no denying he was handsome, but she hated that shaggy Gerard Depardieu look; it was so hackneyed, particularly in an actual Frenchman. Beautifully easy to caricature, though, even if she would have to tone down her trademark sharp edge for these drawings.
Sylvia went on, ‘Well, I’ve lived with artists for long enough to see that you’re in a creative reverie now. I’ll be downstairs if you need me, darling.’
‘Oh, sorry, I just had some lovely ideas for your website. I think I’d better start getting some sketches down before I lose them.’ She pulled a small notebook out of her pocket. ‘I’ll start getting acquainted with the light in here, too, it’s lovely.’
‘All right, but don’t forget about the bathroom.’
For the next hour or so, Juliet made some preliminary notes and drawings of her ideas. It was possible that none of them would ever be used, especially once she started observing the chefs at work, but it was as blissfully distracting as ever to work. When she snapped the book shut, she immediately started searching online for local bathroom installers and, twenty minutes later, had two meetings set up. Still reeling from her newfound motivation, she creaked down the wooden staircase to say goodbye to her aunt. But when she reached the kitchen, it was not the comforting sight of Sylvia that met her, but the distinctly less welcome one of Léo. He was sitting on a stool at the island, a pile of heavy cookbooks next to him, making notes in an old exercise book. He looked up as she appeared.
‘Ah, hello, Juliet. Sylvia told me you would be down soon. So, you think you will move in?’
‘Yes, that’s right. I want to do everything I can to help save Feywood.’
She could hear the defensive tone of her voice. Why did she let this man rile her so?
‘Ah, very noble. I’m sure you will be sorry to give up your glittering life in London, though.’
‘Almost as much, perhaps, as you were to give up your glittering life – and femme mariée – in France?’
The look of shock on his face told her that the jibe had met its target.
‘What do you know of this?’
Nothing, really, but it wouldn’t hurt him to think the opposite.
‘Oh, I know…enough.’ She’d better get on to translating some of those articles. ‘No wonder you came to hide at Feywood.’
‘I am not hiding. The opportunity here with your aunt was too good not to grab. You, perhaps, feel it is more of a punishment to come back to this glorious place?’
How dare he think he had some monopoly on appreciating Feywood and her family. But she wasn’t willing to get into some tricky argument, when he did, admittedly, have a point that she hadn’t exactly been desperate to return and was undoubtedly hugely privileged to be able to call Feywood home, even if it was crumbling. Time to end this conversation, something she excelled at. She summoned up her iciest tones.
‘Don’t be so arrogant as to think you know me – or my family. Feywood has its secrets and its surprises. You’ve been here five minutes, but that takes a lifetime of living here to understand.’
With a final contemptuous scowl, she turned and left, wondering as she went if moving back home – and living so close to this conceited, judgemental has-been – was a monumental mistake.