The Keeper of Lost Things(11)

RED GEMSTONE—

Found, St. Peter’s churchyard, late afternoon, 6th July . . .

The smell of gardenias always reminded Lilia of her mother in her pale blue Schiaparelli gown. St. Peter’s was awash with their waxy blooms and their perfume filled the cool air that welcomed friends and relations in from the fierce afternoon sun outside. At least the flowers had been Eliza’s choice. Lilia was glad to sit down. New shoes were pinching her toes, but her vanity made no concession to arthritis and old age. The woman in the ridiculous hat had to be his mother. Half the occupants of the pew behind her would miss the entire wedding. An announcement from the vicar brought the rustling congregation to its feet as the bride arrived in her ugly mushroom of a dress clinging desperately to her father’s arm. Lilia’s heart winced.

She had offered Eliza the Schiaparelli. She loved it, but the groom wasn’t keen.

“Good God, Lizzie! You can’t get married in a dead woman’s dress.”

Lilia had never liked Eliza’s intended. Henry. She could never trust a man who shared his name with a vacuum cleaner. The first time they met, he had looked down his shiny, bulbous nose at her in a fashion that clearly intimated that women over sixty-five don’t count. He spoke to her with the exaggerated patience of someone house-training a recalcitrant puppy. In fact, at that first family lunch, so lovingly prepared and so kindly intended, Lilia got the distinct impression that none of the family passed muster, except, of course, Eliza. And her greatest assets, in his eyes, were her beauty and her tractability. Oh, he was complimentary enough about the food. The roast chicken was almost as delicious as his mother’s, and the wine was “really quite good.” But Lilia watched him registering with disdain a slight mark on his fork and an imaginary smudge on his wineglass. Eliza was already, even then, gently explaining and excusing his behavior, like an anxious mother with an unruly toddler. Lilia thought that what he needed was a jolly good slap on the back of his chubby legs. But she wasn’t really worried, because she never dreamed it would last. Henry was an irksome addition to the family, but she could cope because he was temporary. Surely?

Eliza had been such a spirited child; determined to follow her own path. She wore her party frock with Wellingtons to go fishing for newts in the stream at the bottom of the garden. She liked banana and tuna-fish sandwiches and once spent the whole day walking everywhere backward “just to see what it feels like.” But everything changed when her mother, Lilia’s daughter, died when Eliza was just fifteen. Her father had remarried and provided her with a perfectly serviceable stepmother. But they were never close.

Lilia’s own mother had taught her two things; dress for oneself, and marry for love. She had managed the first but not the second, and regretted it for her whole life. Lilia learned from her lesson well. Clothes had always been her passion; it had been a love affair that had never disappointed. And so it was with her marriage. James was a gardener for her parents at their country house. He grew jewel-hued anemones, pom-pom dahlias, and velvet roses that smelled of summer. Lilia was astonished that such a man, sinewy and strong, with hands twice the size of hers, could coax into life such delicate blooms and blossoms. She fell in love. Eliza had adored her grandfather, but Lilia was widowed when she was still a little girl. Years later, she once asked Lilia how she had known that he was the man she should marry and Lilia told her. Because he loved her anyway. Their courtship was long and difficult. Her father disapproved and she was strong-willed and impatient. But no matter how ill her temper, how sunburned her face, how dreadful her cooking, James loved her anyway. They were happily married for forty-five years, and she still missed him every day.

When her mother died, Eliza’s sense of purpose faded away and she became lost, like an empty paper bag being blown this way and that in the wind. And so she remained, until one day the bag got caught on a barbed-wire fence; Henry. Henry was a hedge-fund manager and everyone knew that that was not a proper job. He was a money gardener; he grew money. For Christmas, Henry bought Eliza cordon bleu cookery lessons, and took her to his mother’s hairdresser. Lilia waited for it to be over. For her birthday, in March, he bought Eliza expensive clothes that made her look like someone else and replaced her beloved old Mini with a brand-new two-seater convertible she was too afraid to drive in case it got scratched. And still Lilia waited for it to be over. In June he took her to Dubai and proposed marriage. She wanted her mother’s ring, but he said that diamonds were “so last year.” He bought her a new one set with a ruby the color of blood. Lilia always felt it was a bad omen.

Eliza would be there soon. Lilia thought that they’d sit under the apple tree. It was shady there and she liked to listen to the sleepy buzzing of the bees and smell the warm grass, like hay. Eliza always had tea with Lilia on Saturday afternoons. Salmon and cucumber sandwiches and lemon-curd tarts. Thank heavens the tuna fish and banana fell out of favor eventually. It was a Saturday afternoon when she had brought Lilia’s invitation to the wedding, and she had asked Lilia then what her mother would have thought of Henry; would she have liked him and would she approve of their marriage? Eliza had looked so young in spite of her overdone hair and her stiff, new clothes, so anxious for approval, and so keen for someone to reassure her that this would be the “happy ever after” that she was longing for. Lilia had been a coward. She had lied.

Henry turned and saw his bride creeping nervously down the aisle and smiled. But there was no tenderness softening his face. It was the smile of a man taking delivery of a smart new car; not that of a groom melting at the sight of his beloved bride. As she arrived at his side and her father placed her hand in his, Henry looked smug; he approved. The vicar announced the hymn. As the congregation struggled through “Guide Me, O Thou Great Redeemer,” Lilia could feel the panic bubbling inside her like jam in a saucepan about to boil over.