One Silver Summer Page 14

  From the corner of her eye, something else added to her confusion: David’s battered green Land Rover was parked outside with a familiar black doggy face at the window and then from inside the front entrance came a pronounced, raised voice that she half recognized. The old lady from the church. Alex’s grandmother. The countess. This was her home and she, Saskia Laura Emerson, had not been invited.

  “Ah! So there you are at last!”

  If the countess was shocked to see her grandson standing on her porch holding hands with a soaking-wet girl she’d last seen dry-heaving, she didn’t show it. Not a flicker. Behind Helena stood David. Sass wriggled her hand free. Her uncle was staring at Alex. The countess was the first to speak again, her voice tight clipped.

  “I see that a few introductions are in order.”

  Her gaze would have frozen oceans.

  “We’ve just been discussing you both.”

  A pause on the plural that lasted too long.

  “Mr. Emerson, this is my grandson, Alexander, only son of my daughter, Seraphina, Princess of Wales.”

  Sass watched her uncle shake Alex’s automatic, outstretched hand while both stood rooted to the ground.

  David hadn’t believed it until he saw Sass with his own eyes, holding hands with the boy he’d seen on TV! That woman at the gallery had been a snooping journalist from the Daily Sun. Like a schmuck, he’d told her about Sass: suckered in by her praise of his art. How she’d worked out the rest, he’d no idea.

  When the countess’s butler had summoned him an hour ago, he’d locked up the gallery and come. The countess been kind to Sass at the wedding. He doubted she’d feel the same way now, but he had to try to explain, if only for Sass’s sake.

  He’d wrapped the restored painting of the sea horses in oilskin and put it in the back of the Land Rover, and rattled up the long mile or so to Trist with Harry sitting beside him on top of the incriminating paper.

  David had parked and taken his time, not sure what he was letting himself in for. Pulling the bell rope, he’d shuffled and waited, hearing the distant jangle deep inside the house. Through the open front door, he caught sight of a bronze sculpture of a horse lying on a polished hall table. An Elisabeth Frink. The weather-beaten creature was lying down, asleep, its eyes closed to the elements. It looked so vulnerable and rough-hewn that he couldn’t help but go in and touch it.

  “Isn’t she beautiful?”

  He jumped. He’d been expecting a member of staff to come to the door, not the countess herself.

  “Every morning,” she continued, “I stroke her head for luck. If you look closely, you’ll see the tiniest shiny patch between her ears. Stuff and nonsense, of course, especially in the circumstances, but rather comforting, don’t you think?”

  An hour later, standing beside her errant grandson, Helena fixed her gimlet stare on the uncle and niece. There was an obvious family likeness: the blue of their eyes and the shape of their mouths. When she’d first seen Saskia’s uncle bent over her sculpture, she’d thought of someone else. A ghost from the war. Silly her. She’d given herself a hard pinch because it was only the faintest resemblance. The past playing tricks on her.

  Helena knew of David Emerson by trade because she’d chosen him to restore her beloved foam horses. Saskia had mentioned the family connection when they’d driven back from the church. A well-intended conversation with a grieving girl had taken on a whole new and rather shocking significance. She and Alex were clearly … attached. She’d pieced that much together from that ghastly rag of a paper. If only she’d listened to Alex properly during that briefest of conversations over dinner about meeting a friend with Bo, all this unpleasantness might have been avoided. She sniffed. Alex had blatantly disobeyed her.

  The uncle’s accent was curious: a hint of transatlantic drawl, although everyone sounded American these days. If she closed her eyes, it really could be him. Her lost airman from the war. She lingered on the recollection, reluctant to let it go. He was so often on her mind these days.

  Helena had shown David to the quiet of the morning room so they could discuss what to do, but her gaze had swept past him and the faded silk walls; beyond the rain-splattered glass of the French windows, where a spider hung by a thread; all the way down the lavender lawn of her memory to where an American boy in uniform had once stood and waited for her.

  She inhaled the scent of it now and it calmed her. No wonder the girl had fallen for her grandson. Trist was a place to fall in love. Poor Saskia deserved a little happiness, but how could she find it with this family? Wasn’t it her responsibility, as Alex’s other grandmother, to steer him toward someone, well, more suitable? More robust. A girl, to put it bluntly, less damaged.

  Sass felt like screaming. Everyone was respectfully ignoring each other. The longest silence dripped between them. Drip. Drip. Drip. Sass willed Alex to catch her eye, but he didn’t. He didn’t even try, instead he went up and down on his toes as if on the edge of exploding. Why would he not look at her? She couldn’t hold it in any longer.

  “Look at me, Alex? Talk to me!” She held her hands wide, but he clenched his jaw and looked away, fists bunched by his sides, and when he eventually, eventually, turned to her ashen-faced, she saw that the fire in his eyes had gone.

  In her sodden jeans pocket, the key to the meadow felt suddenly cool. Ice cold. Sass had liked Alex so much; was a little in love with him. She’d kept their secret, just as she’d promised, but this … this, and the awfulness of seeing herself in print, was just too much. She ran down the steps leaving a trail of wet straw. Taking out the key, she flung it away, covering her ears with her hands to muffle the sound of her heart breaking. She had to get away. To think. To find Harry, that small bad dog who came to her rescue every time she could no longer rely on people.

  Sass heard the knock on the boat loft door, but ignored it. She just wanted to be on her own. She’d stepped out of her puddling wet clothes and put on old pajamas: brushed pink cotton with baby owls on, bought from Target when she was twelve. It didn’t matter now that they didn’t reach much past her knees.

  The weight on her chest was back. A special, crushing kind of karma. Her one consolation that Mom would never know how stupid she’d been.

  The knock came again.

  “Sass, can I come in?”

  Every cell in her body shouted no. But Jessie didn’t wait for an answer. She lifted the latch and walked right in, and sat down at the end of the bed.

  “Oh, Sass … talk to me?”

  “Why? I got it all wrong, that’s all.”

  “What did you get wrong, my love?”

  “That he liked me, believed me.”

  “You mean … um, Prince Alex?”

  Like Jessie didn’t quite believe it herself.

  “Yes, Alex!” Just a stupid boy, not god almighty.

  “Aren’t you being too hard on yourself?” Jessie frowned. “He didn’t pressure you into anything, did he?”

  She was thinking of the photo, of course. Sass cringed and buried her face.

  “No! Not like that.” Muffled voice. “I thought it would work out between us, even once I knew who he was. I didn’t think of what came with it, or what might happen next. I didn’t think, period.”

  “Did he lie to you, then?”

  “Yes, and no. He was always so secretive. He wanted us to be a secret. He didn’t want the world to find out, or maybe … maybe it was because he didn’t think I was good enough? Or because he had a girlfriend already. I’d have believed anything because it felt so good; it felt special.”

  “Oh, sweetheart, I’m so sorry. Did you tell him about you?”

  “No. I never did.” Sass swallowed. “At first I didn’t know him well enough and then later, I didn’t want to ruin things. Some sad girl crying for her mom. I just wanted to be normal again. I just wanted to feel … wanted.”

  Jessie took both her hands. “You are normal and you are wanted, just dealing with some big stuff.”

  A
swell rose inside Sass like the sea below her window.

  “I would’ve scared him off. We might never have come this far.”

  “How far’s that?” Jessie looked anxious again.

  “Far enough to think … I could breathe.”

  And the swell became a wave that broke on the shore while Jessie held her. Some sad girl, crying for a mom she no longer had, over a boy she never would.

  Alex had watched Sass go, feeling numb from head to foot. He’d picked up the key and the crumpled paper and slumped in the corner of Dancer’s stable. Shutting his eyes, he concentrated on the steady sound of his horse eating. He looked down at the front page, the thing he loathed most: being Public Property Number One. People talking, tweeting, smirking.

  Sass had blabbed to the press. He still couldn’t believe it! And could never forgive her. Grinding the heels of his hands to his face, he crushed the Gollum inside him, whining for what he couldn’t have. She’d gone. He’d lost her finally. The Land Rover lurching off worse than a kick in the guts.

  How stupendously ironic that the one girl—the only girl—he thought had liked him for being him instead of for what he was, had made him look like a fool. She’d promised to keep their secret and then betrayed him the very next day. At best, she’d been naïve. He couldn’t blame her for the photograph. His fault. He should have known better than to be seen in public, but then, she was the one who’d found him on the beach that day. Must have told that journalist, that cow, Cressida Slater of all people. Some things, private things, weren’t for sharing. He heard the voice of his father: never wear your private life on your public sleeve. Drummed into him since birth. He reached a hand up to Dancer, who nudged him with his nose. If this was “falling for” someone, he’d fallen flat on his bum. What was the point of figuring it out anymore? His life was one epic fail.

  Helena thought that she’d seen everything—she wasn’t that shortsighted yet—however, she was shocked that Alex was so swift to disbelieve the girl. He’d stood there immovable as a rock. Helena closed her eyes and felt her heart contract. Should she have said or done something? So often these days, her heart missed a beat, or drummed a little out of time.

  Helena thought of Saskia bent double in the churchyard, pale as a ghost, trying to be brave in the face of her dead mother. Was falling in love with her grandson so wrong? They were young. They loved horses and being together. Wasn’t that enough? It should be. Why should the rest matter? Why should it color the rest of Alex’s life?

  Well, it did. She pursed her lips. Alex lived his life in a goldfish bowl; it was the price of privilege. He knew the rules and he’d flouted them, and now both would pay the price. She shook her head. That photograph on the beach: the unfastened back of Saskia’s dress blowing in the breeze. It was hardly in flagrante delicto, but they were both very young, and it was undoubtedly true that it would be for the best, and certainly easier, if they broke up now. Life was perilous enough: a bridle path of twisted tree roots. She knew. It had happened to her all those years ago, during a war that had been the making and breaking of her. Helena’s heart gave a little leap; it still hurt after all this time.

  She found Alex down on the yard and put her hand on his head, his hair so unruly in the damp.

  “Alex, won’t you come inside?”

  “No. Just leave me alone.” Said through gritted teeth.

  “I’m so sorry, darling.”

  “It’s not your fault. It’s mine. And now it’s over and that’s good, isn’t it?”

  His tone shocked her, if not the sentiment.

  “Well, it does need thinking about.”

  “Honestly, Gran, just leave it!”

  She paused and took a breath.

  “You mean, what could I possibly know or understand? You’d be surprised, dear boy. Now come inside and let’s talk.”

  Alex got to his feet. He followed his grandmother into the kitchen and watched as she sat down at the head of the table. In the old Windsor chair, she seemed suddenly small. His gran, getting older. She clasped her hands on the century-old table. He took in the fat, arthritic knuckles, clumsy fingers now, that had once handled reins with the lightest of touches. Hands that had dusted him off every time he fell over, or fell off, or fell for a girl he couldn’t stop thinking about.

  “Look, I want you to believe in Saskia, but it’s better that it ends here,” she told him, lips pressed tight.

  “Well, I don’t believe in her anymore. And I doubt she wants me either.”

  “Listen, Alexander. This isn’t about you, or the mistakes you’ve made … in being together. Saskia should never, ever have to deal with anything like this again. Such exposure is dreadful.” She glowered at the paper in his hand.

  Why was his grandmother taking her side?

  “What are you saying?” Something inside him flared. So unfair. His feelings mattered too, didn’t they? He was the one betrayed.

  “How well do you know her? Saskia, I mean?”

  Not very well, as it turns out.

  “I met her once before today.”

  “What? You didn’t think to mention it at the time?” He spat out the words, not caring if he was rude.

  “How was I to know of your … relationship? I met her quite by chance in the churchyard the day before yesterday … when your mother came to stay. I rather doubt she knew who I was.”

  “Oh …”

  “What if I told you …” His grandmother’s voice dropped and her chin trembled. “That this isn’t the moment to be thinking about yourself, your own hurt pride, or that the world is against you. Life is good and your life is the best. This girl, Saskia, hasn’t had it easy. She doesn’t need any more heartache.”

  “Why? What are you talking about? How do you know?”

  “It’s not for me to say.” Grandma was firm. She stood up stiffly. “I think perhaps it’s time for a drink, something stronger. Medicinal. Won’t you join me in the study?”

  His grandmother poured them each a tot of his great-grandfather’s last remaining single-malt Scotch whisky.

  “Down the hatch,” she said.

  Alex stared at the swirling amber; he hated the stuff and wouldn’t drink it. On his father’s side he knew his lineage by heart. All the way back to the Magna Carta. On his mother’s side, he knew far less and had never met his grandfather, who was already old when Gran had married him. As for his great-grandfather, the earl had shot himself in the woods a few years after he returned from the Great War. His young daughter, Helena, was not enough to live for when so many others had died. This was his smoking room. His brown boots still stood to attention in the corner. Alex remembered the night before school last Christmas. He’d stayed up late, lying on the leather Chesterfield with his earphones on, watching the embers in the fireplace cast their dark patterns on the ceiling. He looked up now and the old stag’s head on the wall looked back, and in that dead creature’s face, he realized there was only one way out of the mess. One way he could protect Sass from whatever came next, because he knew how the press would twist it. What they might turn up later.

  He’d leave. Go back to London, as far away as possible. He’d be the fox for the press hounds to shred. He’d do his parents’ fake photos, smile dutifully for the cameras, do whatever they wanted, so long as they stopped wanting more of her. He picked up the smoky drink and chucked it in the fireplace. Gazing down at Sass’s head in the photo, he ran his thumb lightly down her spine before crushing the newspaper into a ball and reaching for the matches.

  Turning back to his grandmother, he searched the lines of her face.

  “You didn’t say if you liked her.”

  Helena thought of the lonely girl in her flower-print dress at the churchyard. The sort of dress that she’d worn once. She remembered Sass’s tearful reveal and the way the girl had carried herself that day. She had wiped her face and put her shoulders back, and shown … true grit. She was a girl to admire.

  But Saskia Emerson had been through the m
ill. Helena watched the creased edges of the paper catch light, bit back the truth, and looked up.

  “I liked her immensely, darling, but really, is she quite right for you?”

  Her grandson looked away, and there wasn’t a more unhappy boy in all of England, Scotland, Northern Ireland, and Wales.

  Alex spent a restless and lonely night on the rooftop. After the head spin of yesterday, doubts crowded in. Could he have been wrong about Sass? Was there another explanation? How could he know for sure if he didn’t go and find her? Even Gran knew more about her than he did. But what had he missed? And why hadn’t she told him?

  He crouched on his haunches with his back to the wall, the wind lashing the distance between them. He imagined Sass asleep, her hair across her face. Did she sleep on her front, or back, or curled up on her side? Had she told him the truth? Was she tricked? Was she bribed? It happened all the time. Alex picked up a broken roof tile and scratched her initials in the stone between his feet. S. L. E. They’d wash away later when the rain came.

  As dawn broke, the cockroach was back, his father’s gleaming Range Rover crawling up the drive with its darkened windows. It was six a.m.: they had to be joking? Last evening, both of his parents had rung on the landline from different places, united in their separate outrage. Corbett had put them through. His mother had been shrill, fussing about police protection 24-7, while his father had seemed oddly surprised at his son’s decision to return so soon.

  Alex dressed quickly. Whatever the truth, leaving was the right thing to do, before he caused more trouble for either of them. But no way could he go without seeing her one last time.

  He slipped down the old servants’ staircase. Through the kitchen door, he could hear the foghorn voice of Fellowes: poor Mr. and Mrs. C, their morning tea ruined. Alex edged his way past and was almost out of the back door when he smacked into a younger, bald-headed guy having a quiet smoke by the basement steps. A newbie. Royal Protection. Alex had never seen him before, and he was standing in his way.