The Last Camellia: A Novel (7 page)

“Miss Lewis, this is Mr. Humphrey, Lord Livingston’s chauffeur,” Mrs. Dilloway said as the man sat down, helping himself to a slice of bread. “Mr. Humphrey, Miss Lewis is the new nanny.”

He nodded. “What do you think of them?”

“I’m sorry?” I asked.

“The children,” he said, spreading butter on the thick slice of bread with a firm hand. Dirt remained under his nails from the apparently unsuccessful scrubbing.

“Oh, yes,” I said. “I hope they’ll warm to me, after all they’ve been through.”

He grunted something between bites, before taking a drink of tea. “Watch out for the eldest one,” he said. “That boy carries a pitchfork, I tell you.”

“I don’t know if I’d go as far as to say that,” I said.

“Well,” he harrumphed. “Say what you want, but that child is the devil incarnate.”

“Miss Lewis,” Mrs. Dilloway interjected, “Mr. Humphrey’s just smarting because he thinks Abbott gave the car a flat tire last week.”

“What makes you think he did that?”

Mr. Humphrey leaned back in his chair. “I know a guilty face when I see one,” he said. “Besides, you should have seen his smirk when I had to patch the tire.”

“Maybe he’s just misunderstood,” I said. “Maybe his brother and sisters are too. After all, they only recently lost their mother.”

A silence fell over the room, and I felt my cheeks growing pink.

“Miss Lewis,” Mrs. Dilloway began, “if you don’t have an appetite, why don’t I show you the house?”

I nodded. “That would be lovely, thank you.”

We walked up the stairs, through the doorway that led to the foyer. Mrs. Dilloway walked straight to a gold sconce on the far wall and polished it with her sleeve. “That Sadie,” she huffed. “She always neglects these fixtures.” She took a step back to examine the sconce, then frowned. “Lord Livingston doesn’t like to see fingerprints.”

I glanced around the foyer, open to three stories. The walls were dressed in elaborate wood panels and decorated with paintings of people engaged in foxhunting and horse-riding and other scenes of life in the English countryside of centuries past. I thought of Desmond suddenly, wondering if he came from a home like this.

“It’s quite something, isn’t it?” Mrs. Dilloway said proudly.

“Oh, yes,” I replied.

“I remember my first day here. I’d never seen anything more beautiful in all my life.”

“I can see why,” I said, marveling at the space. “It’s so different from where I come from.”

“You will come to love it as I have,” Mrs. Dilloway said confidently.

I gazed up at a painting of a stiff-looking man with a dog seated at his feet. I thought of Papa with his easy smile and rosy cheeks. “What’s Mr. Livingston, I mean, er, Lord Livingston like?”

Mrs. Dilloway eyed the painting affectionately. “He’s a complicated man,” she said. “He—” The front door flung open and a large yellow Labrador retriever barreled in. His light fur was all but covered in a thick layer of mud. He wagged his tail, and dropped a rubber ball at my feet. A moment later, Abbott and Nicholas appeared sheepishly, their pants mud-stained.

“Mr. Abbott! Mr. Nicholas!” Mrs. Dilloway scolded. “Where have you been?”

“We only took Ferris on a walk to the rose garden, ma’am,” the elder boy said.

“Boys, your father forbade you,” she continued. “Why must you disobey him?”

“It was Ferris’s fault,” Nicholas said. “He ran away. We had to go after him.”

Mrs. Dilloway plucked a pink petal that had affixed itself to the mud on Abbott’s shirt. It was much too large to be a rose petal. “I see you haven’t been truthful with me,” she said, eyeing the petal. “You’ve been in the orchard again, haven’t you?”

The orchard.

He nodded guiltily.

“Mr. Abbott, you are twelve years old. You know better. Now, run upstairs and get in the bath. You too, Mr. Nicholas. There’s just enough time to wash and get this foyer cleaned before dinner. You’re very lucky that Miss Lewis and I have soft hearts and won’t mention it to your father. Now, be off with you.”

The boys disappeared up the stairs, and Mrs. Dilloway sighed. “I’ll get Mr. Humphrey to wash Ferris,” she said. “If he insists on keeping a dog, he must bathe him. I told Lord Livingston a dog was a bad idea, but Mr. Humphrey convinced him.” She sighed. “You check on the boys. Make sure they scrub behind their ears and that their clothes are pressed for dinner. I’ll present you to Lord Livingston at six in the dining room. Servants don’t eat with the family, but the nanny is the exception.”

“Yes, ma’am,” I said, walking upstairs. On the landing, a white sheet covered a large object that had been propped against the balusters. I lifted the corner to find a painting of a woman clutching a pink flower. Her sad eyes pierced mine, and I marveled at the emotion the artist had captured with the paintbrush.
Please
, she seemed to cry,
help me
. I shivered, quickly tucking the sheet back over the canvas before anyone saw me.

Addison

“T
here’s a concert in the park in town tonight,” Rex said that evening. “Want to go?”

“Are you asking me out?” I said, grinning.

“I am,” he replied with a big smile.

We took the old Rolls-Royce and parked it along the street and walked to the park. Tables were set up in front of a small stage, where couples, young and old, were hovering over pints of beer, smiling, talking, whispering things into one another’s ears.

“You find us a table,” Rex said, kissing my cheek lightly. “I’ll go grab the beers.”

I chose a table toward the far right and sat down. While I waited for Rex to return, I noticed an older couple sitting at a nearby table. They held hands and gazed into each other’s eyes, seeming to speak a language all to themselves.

“For you,” Rex said, setting a pint of amber ale in front of me. A bit of the froth had spilled over the side. I slurped it up.

Rex took a drink, then leaned back in his chair. “So I was thinking,” he said. “In a novel, would the villain be the secretive housekeeper type—”

“You mean, like Mrs. Dilloway?”

He nodded. “Or a dark horse, like that guy over there.” He pointed to an older man in a dark suit seated on the other side of the park. A chocolate Labrador sat at his feet.

“No, never the guy with the dog,” I said. “Dogs hint at a person’s goodness.”

“Not unless it’s there to throw the reader off,” Rex said. “A way to make a character
seem
good.”

“You may be onto something there,” I said, taking another sip. “So you’re thinking of adding a new character to your novel?”

“Maybe,” he said, a little cryptically. “But I do have an idea.”

“What?”

He leaned in closer. “What if I start over, write a murder mystery about a family in an old manor house like the very one we’re staying in? A mystery that spans generations.”

“I think it’s brilliant,” I said.

Rex planted his chin in his palm and smiled. I loved it when he looked at me that way, as if the earth’s very orbit depended on my approval. “Will you help me?”

“Honey, you’re the word guy,” I said.

“But you’re so good at plot,” he continued. “Remember how you helped me work out the turning point, where the character leaves New York—”

“And realizes he left behind the love of his life?”

Rex nodded. “The story wouldn’t have been the same without that scene.”

I shrugged. “I just knew they were meant to be together, that’s all. The reader would have hated you for separating them.”

“That’s just it,” Rex said. “You realized that. I didn’t.”

“Well,” I said modestly. “I guess all those years reading Nancy Drew paid off, that or my love of rom coms.”

“You have a sixth sense for these things,” he said. “And I think, with your help, this novel might be the one.”

I squeezed his hand. “Then I’m your girl.”

The band took to the stage, and I watched as a man fiddled with the cord attached to his guitar. “Want another beer?” Rex asked.

“Sure.”

“Be right back,” he said, jumping up from his seat.

I watched him disappear through the crowd to the beer tent. The sun had set, and the candles on the tables lent a warm, orange glow to the surroundings. I admired the old linden tree in the distance. I followed the curve of its branches with my eyes, which is when I noticed a shadowy figure slip behind the tree’s trunk. My stomach lurched.
No, it can’t be him. . . . Or can it?
I searched the crowd desperately until I saw Rex returning with a beer in each hand and a smile that made my fears momentarily vanish.

The next morning, Rex took to the drawing room with a stack of books he’d found in the bedroom, including one about ladies’ fashions in prewar Britain. “You know you’re just going to flip right to the lingerie section,” I said, grinning.

“Wait, there’s a
lingerie
section?” he asked playfully.

I snatched the book from him and flipped to the back, to a page detailing the various kinds of petticoats of the time. “For your reading pleasure,” I said, laying the book in his lap.

Rex grinned. “I guess I had something a little
different
in mind when you said ‘lingerie.’”

I wanted to take a photo of his face just then. That boyish grin. That look of love, of contentedness. Couldn’t he see? We didn’t need children to complete us. We were already complete. I had my flowers and plants, and he had his writing. Wasn’t that enough? Didn’t he love the ebb and flow of our life together just as it was? The way I’d race home for dinner with a basket brimming with vegetables from the market or a handful of herbs from a garden project, eager to read the pages he’d written that day. Didn’t he love, as I did, the quiet mornings we spent in our garden, sipping espresso and discussing our latest venture to a flea market in Queens or an antiques shop in Connecticut? Once we carted an enormous painted dresser to a taping of
Antiques Roadshow
only to find that the piece was made in China. I grinned at the memory.

Rex set the book aside and looked up at me. “So, say I set a mystery right here at the manor,” he said. “An entirely new book. Who would the cast of characters be?”

“Well,” I said, “the overbearing Lord of the house, of course, and his sad, mysterious wife.”

Rex scribbled a few notes in his notebook.

I looked out the window to the orchard beyond. “Maybe she spent her time in the gardens because of her sadness? Maybe the flowers gave her a sense of peace.”

“I like it,” Rex said. “And the housekeeper—she’s in on something. Maybe she has a thing for the Lord?”

“Maybe,” I said. “There might be others, too. Like the children in the nursery. The other household staff.” I eyed the copy of
The Years
I’d left on the side table. “And then there’s Flora.”

Rex looked momentarily confused. “Flora?”

“Yeah,” I said. “I found her name right here in this book.”

“Who is she?” Rex asked.

“I don’t know. But I’d like to find out.”

“Me too,” he said, turning back to his notebook.

I heard a rattling sound outside. “The wind is picking up,” he said.

I walked to the window and looked outside, where great sheets of rain fell. “Too bad,” I said. “I was hoping we could go out to the gardens today.”

“Maybe it’ll clear up this afternoon,” he said.

“I hope,” I said, picking up the copy of
The Years
. “I think I’ll go upstairs for a while and let you get some research done.”

From the stairway, I looked down the hall of the west wing, toward the nursery. I could almost hear the laughter of children of centuries past. Had they been happy here? How could they not have been, with that dollhouse, all the toys, and the well-stocked bookcase?

I turned toward the east wing, where a mahogany double door beckoned on the right. I hadn’t noticed this room before; Mrs. Dilloway had skipped the east wing when we toured the manor. I walked closer, looking around me before placing my hand on the knob. I turned it, slowly, unsure whether it was locked. To my surprise, it wasn’t.

The door creaked a little as I pushed it open and slipped past the threshold. Inside, the air felt cold on my skin, and I shivered as the room came into focus. I wished Rex were standing beside me. The drapes had been pulled shut, but I could see, even in the dim light, that this bedroom had once belonged to a woman—a woman of great importance. Not a single ripple was evident on the lace-trimmed floral bedspread, and the large wardrobe on the opposite wall had been propped open, revealing an array of gowns inside.

I walked to the dressing table, examining a set of brushes and a mirror engraved with the letters AML. Had this been Lady Anna’s private chamber? I looked at myself in the old mirror, which had a jagged crack at the center. Had Lady Anna looked at her reflection in this very same mirror the day she died? I touched my finger to the lightning-bolt crack in the glass.

I could still hear the rain falling outside. It pelted the window glass. And as a gust of wind howled through the cracks of the trim, a distinct floral scent hit my nose—the heady, musky scent of lilac, maybe—as if there might be a woman standing there behind me, a woman who had recently spritzed perfume on the nape of her neck. My heart beat wildly in my chest as I spun around, which is when I noticed the vase of flowers on the dresser. Freshly cut peonies and a few sprigs of purple lilac peeked out of a large crystal vase. Had Mrs. Dilloway left them here? Why? For whom?

I walked to the dresser to have a closer look, and I saw a book resting atop a lace cloth. Larger than a diary, it appeared to be a scrapbook or album of some sort, with various items tucked inside. I turned to the first page and squinted to read the handwritten inscription: “The Camellias of Livingston Manor; Compiled by Anna Livingston.”

My eyes widened. Inside were dozens of pressed blossoms. Faded and paper-thin, each had been glued to its own page alongside handwritten accounts of the date and origin, with detailed planting and care information. Beside the “Petelo Camellia” bloom, Lady Anna had inscribed: “Edward surprised me with this little tree on my birthday. It came from Vietnam, where it was found in a low-lying forest at the foot of a mountain. Its bright yellow petals cheered me instantly. It reminded me of one I saw in the conservatory in Charleston so many years ago.”

So Lord Livingston had brought her rare camellias to cheer her up. Why had she needed cheering? I was fascinated by the variety of camellias in the book. Reds, pinks, whites. Variegated hybrids. Camellias from all over the world.

I paid particular attention to the notes that edged each page. “Didn’t get sufficient sunlight in the north end of the garden. Moved to west, where soil is better. More drainage.” Suddenly a peculiar pattern emerged. Every top right corner was marked with a series of numbers. I flipped back to the Petelo’s page and studied the code: 5:3:31:2:1. Below it, letters spelled out “L. sussex Hertzberg.” Botanical taxonomy code, probably. But these words didn’t apply to this camellia or any camellias I knew of.

I read through the book, until I came to the last page, which had been torn out. The only proof of its existence was a jagged remnant.
Who took it? Why?
Anna’s book had been meticulously put together. Surely, she hadn’t torn the page.

I heard footsteps on the staircase outside, and I hurried back out to the hallway, closing the door carefully behind me. I tucked the book under my arm as I walked back down the corridor to the staircase, which is when I nearly collided with Mrs. Dilloway.

“Ms. Sinclair,” she said, readjusting the rose stems in her hand. “May I . . . help you?”

“Yes,” I stammered, attempting to obscure the book from her view. “I mean, no. I’m fine.”

“Of course,” she said with a tinge of suspicion in her voice.

I ran back to the bedroom and was happy to find Rex seated on the bed inside. “There you are,” he said, looking up from his book.

“I was in the east wing,” I said, sitting down beside him. “I found a room.”

“Oh?” His curiosity was piqued.

“I went inside. It was open. Rex, it was the strangest thing. It had to have been Lady Anna’s room. Mrs. Dilloway keeps it as if she’s still alive. All her clothes, her things. Even fresh flowers in the vase.”

“Now
that
is creepy,” he said.

“I know.” I set the camellia book on the bed. “And look what I found.”

“What is it?” he asked, taking the book into his hands.

“She kept a record of all the camellias on the property, with the strangest notations. And see the last page? It’s been torn out.”

Rex studied the book for a moment, then shrugged. “Maybe one of the camellias died and she didn’t need to keep the page?”

I shook my head. “No, some of the others died in a snowstorm in 1934,” I said. “See, look at this one. It says so right here on this page. This is different.”

He scratched his head and then froze as he was struck with an idea. “What if this is some sort of code?”

“That’s what I was thinking,” I said. “You know, this could all turn out to be one pretty fantastic novel.”

Rex smiled at me suddenly. “Thanks,” he said.

“For what?”

“For believing in me. You know my parents hate this novel thing. They’d much rather I go back to the investment firm.”

“But you were miserable in that job,” I said. Rex’s happiness, however, wasn’t exactly at the top of his parents’ list of priorities. In their view, a successful executive befitted the Sinclair name; a struggling novelist did not.

“Well,” I said, “see what they say when you hit the
New York Times
bestseller list.”

Rex grinned. “We’ve almost burned through our savings,” he said. “I guess I’ll have to figure out a backup plan if this book thing doesn’t pan out.” He shrugged.

I shook my head. “No. Give it more time. My business is taking off. And”—I paused to choose my words carefully—“your parents would always help if it came to that.”

“I won’t take their money,” he said. It was a sore spot with him. After they’d bought us the townhouse in New York, there were strings attached. My father used to always say, “I brought you into this world, and I can take you out.” But with Rex’s parents, it was more like, “I gave you a life of privilege, and I can take it all away.” They meant well, of course. But there were expectations to visit the family at Christmas and Easter and again for his grandmother’s birthday. That was manageable, I suppose. But when his mother suggested that he convert me to the Anglican Church (she even sent him a membership card in the mail, partially filled out with my name at the top), he drew the line.