It cuts deep that Martha and Jacob, after he has kept them safe from the world for all this time, should have been so careless with his daughter.
John Stone keys in the number and listens to the ringtone, pressing the phone hard against his ear. A southerly wind whistles through the rushes, a forlorn sound. He prays for Spark to answer. She doesn’t. For ten minutes he walks up and down the lane, kicking up lumps of dried mud, trying to keep calm, reasoning with himself, trying to decide whether to call the police, or Mrs. Park, or wait. He watches the wind plow sinuous paths through the reed beds and tries to halt his rising panic.
He had returned to Stowney House as soon as he could, heart singing. The fact of Spark’s existence had been seeping slowly into his mind and soul like water into layers of permeable rock. A daughter of his own, this late gift, this miracle. Then, as he climbed out of the car, he saw Martha’s face as she stood on the threshold: anxious, defensive, eyes red-rimmed. In dismayed silence he listened to her account of what had happened, every last drop of joy pooling away. It has been eighteen hours since Spark left Stowney House. No one went looking for her. Cold sweat sticks his shirt to his back. “Spark is a young woman, after all,” Martha said. “She has the right to go where she chooses. By the time we realized she wasn’t in her room, she could have been anywhere.”
John Stone made no reply but immediately ran to the lane, where, for a time, he screamed his frustration at the sky and the billowing white clouds that sailed serenely over the marshes. At least a contact in Whitehall has proved helpful. He tracked down Stella Park’s cell number and texted it anonymously to John Stone in less than a minute. If it comes to it, John Stone will not hesitate to ask this same contact for help in searching for her. For now, however, he will be steady. He will not overreact. When he can resist no longer, he calls Spark’s number a second time. As he waits to get through, Martha and Jacob appear in the distance. He waves them angrily away. Spark does not pick up. There is no invitation to leave a message. Images of what could befall a young woman, alone and unprotected, crowd in on him. John Stone sinks to the ground, tormented by his powerlessness to act. He sits among feathery grasses, face in his hands, surrounded by crickets. Zig-zig-zig-zig.
Presently it comes to him what he must do, and he composes a text message. If he has not heard from her by one o’clock, he will telephone Mrs. Park. He presses send, and stares at the small screen, willing a reply. When, only minutes later, Spark’s text arrives, he clutches the phone to his chest and, for a brief moment, rocks backward and forward in relief.
* * *
Later, Martha, Jacob, and John Stone stand in a circle by the silent fountain, heads bent and touching. “In me the past lives,” says John Stone softly. “There is nothing more important than this day.” It is Jacob who breaks away first. John Stone felt the need to make his peace with his friends. Never have their actions caused him more distress, but he cannot yet tell them why. Spark will be the first to know that he is her father, and the timing of that revelation will depend on Mrs. Park—although he will do his best to persuade her to act sooner rather than later. Until then, he must keep Martha and Jacob in the dark.
“Will Spark ever come back, do you suppose?” asks Martha.
“If she does, she’ll be wary of you—of us. Let’s wait and see.”
* * *
The three of them take an evening stroll along the riverbank. Grise limps at Jacob’s heels. A cormorant catches a large eel in front of them, and they stop to watch the bird shake its head this way and that, forcing the wriggling thing down into a stomach that can barely be big enough to contain it. This section of the riverbank is choked with brambles, and when a young rabbit vanishes into impenetrable thorns, Jacob hurls a stone after it. Unusually for him, he doesn’t hit his target.
“You’re losing your touch,” says John Stone.
“I aimed to miss.”
“Wasn’t it here that Spark got into the grounds that first time?” asks Martha. “I’ve got a memory of picking barbs from her cardigan.”
“Aye,” says Jacob.
“How on earth did she get through those brambles?” asks John Stone.
“Painfully,” says Martha. “She was a determined little thing.”
Grise’s arthritis is bad today; she’s finding it difficult to keep up with her master. Jacob picks her up, holding her in his arms like a baby.
“Poor old girl,” says Martha, stroking the dog’s tufted ears. “Spark gave her a fright that day, do you remember?”
“She’s still wary of her.”
“Why?” asks John Stone. “What did she do?”
Martha describes how Grise, who was young and fierce back then, caught the scent of a stranger and ran ahead, barking. They found her snarling and baring her teeth, a mere hand’s breadth away from the face of a small girl with a cloud of blond hair. But the child, far from fearful, was standing her ground. Bad dog, she shouted, and, taking hold of Grise’s jaws in her small plump hands, bit her nose. The dog let out a howl that sent the rooks flapping from the trees, and bounded back to Jacob, where she cowered, whimpering, between his legs.
“Extraordinary!” says John Stone.
They walk on, John Stone leading the way with a smile of paternal pride on his face. It occurs to him that, while he is no coward, he suspects Spark inherited that side of her temperament from her mother. John Stone wonders how well, in the end, he knew Thérèse. Those black moods and her petulance—which, over the years, all of them had learned to dread—had they been, all along, the consequence of jealousy on a proud nature? The truth was that many of Thérèse’s departures had been preceded by outbursts directed at the raving creatures her husband had plucked from the gutter and who now “stuck to him like ticks to a dog’s back.” She would have driven them from Stowney House if she could, but John Stone had always stood squarely between them. At the time he had thought Thérèse deeply unreasonable and cruel. Now he sees how his wife must have felt usurped. If only her ridiculous pride had not prevented her from confiding in him! If only he had known that she’d read his journals! Having taken the decision never to talk about Isabelle in order to spare her feelings, had he, in the end, inflicted a greater hurt? John Stone recalls some of the entries Thérèse might have seen and the blood leaves his face.
Martha peers at him with her dark currant eyes. “You seem out of sorts, John.”
John Stone shakes his head vigorously and walks on. He becomes aware that the others are talking quietly together. When he turns around he sees Jacob encouraging Martha to speak. John Stone braces himself. What now?
“We know that you get the shakes. I’ve seen it, and so has Jacob. You’ve got no cause to hide it from us. We’re not children, John.”
He protests that these episodes are nothing. Predictably they don’t believe him. Yet he’s been so careful! Does he tremble without realizing it? Now, there’s an idea that rattles him.
“We think you should go and see a medical man,” says Martha. “Doctors aren’t the butchers they used to be. They can even cure people sometimes.”
John Stone sighs. “It’s a trapped nerve.” He holds up his right hand, the good one. “It comes and goes. But why do you even waste your breath suggesting I see a doctor? Why would I take that risk?”
Martha and Jacob exchange glances. Then Jacob says: “Let’s suppose you’re not ailing, John. Then it seems to us that you’re in too much haste to find another Friend.”
“No.” John Stone shakes his head firmly. “I happen to disagree with you—Edward isn’t getting any younger—”
“Well, you see, John, we don’t want her.”
Her! John Stone feels a crackle of anger ignite in his gut.
“Edward is a lawyer and a man of the world. But this girl . . . With a mother like hers, what makes you think this girl will ever amount to anything?”
“Jacob!” Martha is mortified.
But Jacob has not finished. “Thérèse caused us nothing but grief and her child will
be no different. Spark will bring trouble to Stowney House. Look at us now—she already has—”
John Stone lunges at Jacob. Martha darts between them.
“No!” she cries. “John!”
Jacob drops Grise, who lies where she falls, staring fearfully up at them. The violence of John Stone’s reaction is so out of character that Martha and Jacob seem unsure what to do. He is panting and glassy-eyed. The three of them remain curiously frozen in this tableau until Martha breaks the silence. She snaps at Jacob:
“For the love of Michael, haven’t we had enough trouble for one day? You can see John’s not himself.”
“Good friends speak the truth. Maybe John needs to be reminded that we deserve a say in how we live our lives.”
Martha purses her lips. And how could John Stone possibly argue with such a sentiment? He exhales slowly and lets his fists unfurl. There are rows of scarlet marks where his nails have dug into his palms.
“I’m sorry, Martha. Jacob. Let us talk tomorrow, when I shall be in a calmer frame of mind.”
He walks slowly back toward the house through the birch wood and the orchard. Martha, Jacob, and the limping dog follow on behind, walking in single file. They pass through the yew arch into the formal gardens. No one has the heart to speak.
Goldilocks’s Accomplice
To drive for hour after hour through a summer landscape with Ludo at the wheel. To rest her arm on the open window and feel the wind tug at her hair. To share their favorite music so that it becomes the sound track of their journey. It is a scenario that Spark would have scripted if she could. Except that here she is, less present than absent, with an anxiety that keeps tapping her on the shoulder, reminding her that she’s here because her brother might have inherited the heart condition that killed her father.
The round trip will take close to seven hours. She observes Ludo’s tanned fingers draped around the steering wheel of Andy’s station wagon, and how smoothly he guides them through narrow, winding roads. That Ludo would do this for her! She stopped being tearful at least fifty miles back, but Ludo continues to check on her before flicking his eyes back to the road. She smiles back at him.
“Just keep reminding me which side of the road to drive on,” he says.
Spark tries not to dwell on Mum’s hurtful words, but her mind is trapped in a loop. Norfolk, and then Suffolk, sail by in a blur of hedgerows dotted with scarlet poppies. They pass an ancient oak tree that stands at the center of a vast field. A flock of sheep shelter under its boughs. It puts her in mind of the tree that tore her family apart. Spark never saw the scene of the crash. She knows that Dad’s car smashed into an enormous tree, and wonders if it’s still standing. Dogs who maul people are put down. Trees that fail to get out of the way of oncoming vehicles, and kill with their inert massiveness, are they condemned to be felled? It would be only fitting.
Spark has never worried about Dan. Nor has Mum. Not really. From this day forward, she knows that every time he’s late, every time he’s forgotten to get in touch when he said he would, every time he looks pale and tired, they’ll think: His heart, is it his heart? As if he could read her thoughts, Ludo says: “You know, this checkup, it’s a precaution. Dan’s been most worried about how your mom will take it.”
“And you came all the way to England to give Dan moral support?”
Ludo shrugs. “It was the free trip to Europe that clinched it—”
Spark shoves him with her elbow. “But you’d be daft not to take advantage while you’re here. Is there anywhere you want to see?”
“Paris. Florence. London—of course. As it happens my tutor is over here. I promised I’d hook up with him.”
“When’s that?”
“I’ll see how things go with Dan. It doesn’t take long to get to London from Nottingham, does it? Why don’t we meet up one day?”
“Oh,” says Spark, heart leaping. “Cool.”
* * *
The shadows are long and almost violet by the time they arrive at Stowney House. Spark had intended to go in by herself, on foot, but Ludo leaps out to open the gate and immediately drives over the wooden bridge that spans the stream. The tires crunch down the gravel drive. She hopes John Stone is at home. If not, Martha will be terrified and Jacob will appear brandishing a garden fork or something. As she gets out of the car Spark feels the heat radiate up from the courtyard that has basked in sunshine all day. The scent of the saucer-shaped flowers drifts over from the front of the house. Rows of diamond-paned windows mirror the evening sky. Ludo snatches off his sunglasses and rotates three hundred and sixty degrees. “This is incredible!” he says, pulling out his phone and taking pictures of the house, the gardens, the fountain.
“Martha!” Spark calls. “Mr. Stone!” But the only sound is the low roar of the wind in the trees. “I’ll try the kitchen.”
Ludo follows on her heels, eyes everywhere, touching the beams, the heavy oak furniture, and the old plaster walls, picking up the heavy silver candelabra, running his fingers over the date, 1695, carved into the beam above the inglenook. “There’s no electricity in here,” he says.
“There is in most of the house,” says Spark. “But Martha prefers candlelight and the stove burns wood.”
“That’s a little weird, don’t you think?”
Spark feels a tug of defensiveness. “Is it? I suppose Martha is an old-fashioned sort of person. I wouldn’t say she was weird.”
Still no one arrives to greet them. Spark feels uncomfortably like Goldilocks, only Goldilocks with an accomplice. “Martha!” Ludo goes into the hall and explores the sweeping staircase with its galleried landing. Growing anxious in case Martha or Jacob should appear, Spark strains to hear sounds of their presence. She really should not have let a stranger into their home without permission. Ludo is studying all the pictures in the entrance hall. He takes out his phone and photographs them. Spark is a little taken aback.
“He’s an art lover, your Mr. Stone,” he says.
“Yes,” Spark says, indicating with her thumb a door leading from the hall. “Martha says he’s got a whole gallery of pictures in there.”
“What sort of pictures?”
“I don’t know—it’s his private place. No one disturbs him in there. But you can see my room, if you like. Martha says it’s the most beautiful room in the house.”
“Sure.”
“It’s normally the breakfast room but she brought down a bed for me.”
She leads him to the door and lets him open it. Ludo exclaims loudly. “This is some bedroom.” He looks over his shoulder at her. “Have you ever seen pictures of the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles?”
“No,” says Spark.
“Well, I’m telling you, whoever designed this house definitely has.”
Spark busies herself packing up her things. She gives him sidelong glances, admiring his relaxed gait as he moves around the room, lingering over every detail. Presently he returns to the hall and she hears him climb the stairs. Ludo wasn’t kidding about wanting to see Stowney House.
“I’m going to the car,” she calls up to him. Then she adds: “To put all my bags in the trunk.”
But Ludo doesn’t take the hint. “Okay!” comes the reply.
Andy’s trunk is full of fishing gear, and it takes Spark a while to jam everything in. She checks the time. Already half past seven. Returning to the breakfast room across the lawn, a movement catches her eye. John Stone, Martha, and Jacob are walking in single file through the yew arch. Jacob brings up the rear, carrying his dog. Martha has brought a hand to her mouth and points at the breakfast room. The French doors, which Spark did not shut behind her, are opening and closing in the breeze.
“Hello!” shouts Spark, jogging onto the lawn so that they can see her, and won’t think that a thief has broken into the house.
Martha and John Stone both call out her name and hurry toward her, but Jacob, grim-faced, stands staring upward at the house. Spark looks quickly over her shoulder. Ludo is takin
g pictures from the window of the galleried landing, upstairs. Jacob is going to kill me, she thinks. With everything that has happened since she left Stowney House, Spark has had no time to agonize about facing the people she left in such awkward circumstances. Now she prickles with self-conscious unease. They meet in the middle of the lawn like enemies in no-man’s-land: Martha, neat in a knee-length black skirt and lips parted in surprise; John Stone, as usual, in an immaculate white shirt, his eyes shining a welcome. The angle of the sun seems to accentuate his crooked nose and that familiar stripe of white hair above his forehead. He takes her hands without hesitation.
“Spark! I am delighted that you’ve come back!” Actually, he does seem genuinely delighted to see her.
“I’m sorry for leaving the way I did. I honestly didn’t mean to worry you. I didn’t think—”
“Martha explained what happened. I understand.”
Martha plants a kiss on her cheek. “Thank the Lord you’re all right.”
Spark glances back at the house. “I hope you don’t mind me inviting Ludo in. He drove me here from Mansfield. He’s a friend of Dan’s from New York.”
If John Stone is unhappy that a stranger has felt free to explore his home, he doesn’t show it. Instead, he suggests to Martha that she provide some refreshment for their guests. As for Jacob, Spark watches him vanish, without a word, into the kitchen garden with Grise. At least she knows where she stands with him.
* * *
The presence of this handsome young man in her kitchen unsettles Martha. His sheer physicality is hard to ignore. In this enclosed domestic setting, Ludo does seem to take up a lot of space. Spark notices Martha glancing down at Ludo’s sprawling long legs, at his feet that tap and jiggle in his lime-green shoes while John Stone engages him in conversation. Martha mostly keeps her back to him: It is as though if she can’t see Ludo, Ludo won’t be able to see her.
“Here, let me help you,” says Spark, reaching up for cups and saucers. Then, leaning in toward Martha, she whispers: “I’m ever so sorry about yesterday. I didn’t mean to upset you.”