Mayfield, Virginia
Spring 1941
LYNETTE MONTROSE MAYNARD always felt an emotional tug when approaching Avalon. A sudden quickening of her heart, a sting of tears, a tightening of her throat. Its old brick-and-timber structure, the arched entrance overhung with climbing roses, all brought back the magical childhood she had spent there with her brother and sister, a childhood that had ended cruelly and abruptly with the death of their mother, Faith, in the Titanic disaster. The aftermath of the tragedy had split up their little family. Lynette had gone to the care of their grandmother, Blythe Cameron, in Virginia. Her baby sister, Bryanne, had gone to their other grandmother, Garnet Devlin, in England. Their brother, Gareth, had led a peripatetic life, moving about from place to place, living in New Mexico with their father, Jeff Montrose, a well-known artist, part of the year and going away to boarding school nine months of the year.
Providentially, somehow they had all survived.
At eighteen Gareth had rebelled, left college, declaring he had spent most of his life in school and now wanted to find out for himself what he wanted to do. He had chosen to come back to Avalon, the family home, situated on a small island across the river from Arbordale, Virginia. Their romantic parents had created a kind of enchanted world for themselves there and brought their children up on the legends of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. Gareth was living out that legacy. A bachelor at thirty-two, he seemed perfectly content to remain on the isolated estate. He had become a landscape architect and ventured away from Avalon only as necessary for business. The rest of the time, he seemed to enjoy his solitary existence in his own woodland kingdom.
Lynette skillfully maneuvered the small boat she had rowed across from the ferry landing at Arbordale. She tossed the rope around one of the pilings and, coiling it securely, climbed up on the wooden dock.
A path of flat stepping-stone, bordered by a glorious abundance of white alyssum, pink phlox, purple lobelia, made a winding walkway up to the house.
“Gareth!” Lynette called. “It’s Lynette! Where are you?”
A few minutes later a tall man in stained overalls, wearing leather gardening gloves and holding a large pair of pruning shears in one hand, emerged from around the side of the house.
“Well, Sis!” he greeted her with a wide grin. “To what do I owe a visit from the wife of our eminent state senator? An official inspection tour? Checking up on your recalcitrant brother?”
“None of the above!” She made a dismissing gesture. “I’m here on business, actually. Aren’t you going to invite me in? Where are your so-called host manners?”
“I’m much too dirty to suggest we go inside. How about the grape arbor?” He gestured toward a rustic arch nearby, its latticed sides heavy with twining grapevines, and they walked over to it. “Business or no business, I’m glad you came,” he said, indicating a seat. Then, almost as an afterthought, he asked, “What kind of business?”
“We have a job for you,” Lynette said, brushing off the seat before sitting down. “Frank is going to rent Shadowlawn, his family’s house in Arbordale. The yard badly needs tending. We’ve been in Richmond so much of the time and spent so many weekends out at Spring Hill. It’s been in the hands of a realty firm, and they’ve been showing it for possible sale, but nobody seems to have the money these days. Frank doesn’t like the idea of renting it to just anybody, but the realtor has come up with a good tenant, and we have agreed to a six-month lease. But the yard needs to be cared for—hedges trimmed, lawn mowed, everything tidied up. The renter will be here at the beginning of next month. Do you think you can have it ready by then?”
“Sure. I’ll take a look at the place, of course, see what it needs. But probably a week will be enough time.”
“Frank and I won’t be here when they come, so will you take care of it for us?”
Gareth nodded. “Done.”
“Good. Thank you, Gareth. That’s one thing off my mind.”
“You have a great many things burdening you, Sis?”
“Just the usual. Social things, mostly. Frank’s colleagues and constituents, too.” Lynette sighed as she got to her feet. “Well, I really must be off. I’ve shopping to do and errands to run.”
“I’ll walk to the ramp with you.”
“Yes, do. I don’t really understand why you continue to live out here by yourself, Gareth.” She gave a little shudder. “It has too many memories for me. Even for father. So why do you?”
“I don’t mind memories. Most of mine are happy ones. Except, of course, mother’s death. I’m far happier here than I ever was away at school or in New Mexico.” Gareth made a sweeping gesture with one arm. “Besides, I love this place.”
“And being alone?” his sister persisted. “Don’t you ever want to meet someone and fall in love? How do you expect anyone to share your castle with you when you isolate yourself on this island?” Lynette regarded her brother with a mixture of bewilderment and pique. “I’ve invited you dozens of times to events where there were any number of attractive young ladies, but you always refuse or don’t show up.”
“Don’t worry about me, Sis. When the time is right, the right person will come along. Until then I’m perfectly happy, content.”
“I hope you won’t end up a crotchety old bachelor,” she said, frowning.
Gareth laughed. “I’m sure you’ll see that I don’t—at least the crotchety part. Thanks for all your concern, Sis. But honestly, I’m doing just fine. Tell Frank I’ll see to Shadowlawn, not to worry.” He helped her into the boat and untied the rope. “By the way, who did you say is renting it?”
“I didn’t say. The realtors handled the transaction, and Frank’s secretary saw to the details.” Lynette unlocked the oars and gripped them. “It’s a missionary, just returned from Japan. Been ill, I understand, needs rest and quiet. Shadowlawn will be the perfect place for that.”
A few days later, in Arbordale on business of his own, Gareth went to Shadowlawn to see what needed to be done to the yard. Lynette had given him the key, asking him to go inside and make sure that the house cleaners she hired had done a good job.
Arbordale had developed and grown in the other direction, so this part of town had very few houses. Most were very old, rundown, and spaced widely apart on a meandering country lane. The Maynards’ family home, a simple, unpretentious colonial, was set back from the road on a large, overgrown lawn shaded by ancient trees. At least it came by its name rightly, Gareth thought as he got out of his pickup and looked around. Scraggly rhododendron bushes lined either side of the driveway, and the front porch was heavily hung with wisteria, nearly obscuring the entrance.
Gareth walked all around the house. The grounds needed a lot of work, he observed. This was more than a matter of simply mowing the grass and trimming the overgrown shrubbery. But that was about all he could accomplish before his sister’s tenant came. He went up on the porch and let himself inside. At once the combined smells of astringent cleaners, furniture wax, floor polish—the residue of the house cleaners—made him sneeze. He could report to Lynette that a thorough job had been done.
A center hall ran the length of the house. The rooms were on different levels. On one side two steps led down into a large parlor; on the other side was a dining room. A staircase composed of a short flight of steps, a landing with a balcony, and then a longer flight of steps led up to the second floor, where the bedrooms were.
The rooms were sparsely furnished. Lynette had taken some of the better pieces and antiques to Spring Hill. As he walked through the downstairs, Gareth decided it had a peaceful feel, probably just right for the quiet, uncomplicated life—a good place for a recovering invalid.
Gareth worked most of the next weekend at Shadowlawn. He uncovered some flower beds that had been nearly eclipsed with weeds. As a professional, he saw what a beautiful place Shadowlawn could be if properly cared for. Maybe another day he could come back, if there was time.
Busy with his own spring planting, he did not get back to the Maynard place that week. In checking the calendar the following week, he couldn’t recall the exact arrival date of the tenant. He hoped he hadn’t missed it. Feeling somewhat guilty that he hadn’t accomplished everything he knew needed doing, he decided to take some flowers from his own garden over to Shadowlawn, place them in vases in the house as a welcoming gesture.
It was late afternoon when he pulled into the driveway of Shadowlawn. To his dismay he saw there were lights on inside. He was too late. Somehow he had missed the time of arrival.
He got out of his pickup and, carrying two bouquets of mixed flowers, walked toward the house, then halted. He saw a figure standing at one of the long, open French windows at the side of the house, a woman in some kind of flowing robe.
It was an enchanting picture. For a few minutes he stood, captivated by the graceful silhouette created by the light of the room behind her. Then someone spoke to her and she half turned, so that Gareth saw her profile. He was struck by its perfection.
“Thank you,” he heard her say. Her voice was low, rather husky. Immediately he thought of the Shakespeare line “Her voice was ever soft, gentle and low, an excellent thing in a woman.”
Not wanting to startle her, thinking she would be frightened if she saw the figure of a man lurking in the yard, he approached the porch and called out, “Good evening! I’m Gareth Montrose, Mrs. Maynard’s brother. I came to see if everything was all right.”
There was a moment’s hesitation. “Why, yes, thank you. That is very kind of you and Mrs. Maynard, of course.” He still could not see her features clearly. “Please, won’t you come in?”
In a few long strides he was at the bottom of the porch steps. She turned on the porch light and stepped out. When he saw her clearly, her beauty almost took his breath away.
She was the most exquisite creature he had ever seen. Her skin was as translucent as porcelain, her eyes a violet blue. Her hair grew from a point above her forehead and fell on either side of her heart-shaped face to her shoulders.
Gareth was not an artist’s son for nothing. Growing up surrounded as he had been with paintings, art books, artists, he compared her beauty to that of one of the models used by Rossetti—Jane Burden, perhaps.
Was this Lynette’s tenant? When she had said the person was a missionary returned to the States from Japan, Gareth had not thought to ask if it was a man or a woman. Somehow he had assumed it would be a male missionary, probably a man with a family, on furlough from his work in a foreign land.
Gareth’s conjecture was interrupted when the woman said, “How kind of you to come.” Her speech was very precise, almost as if English were her second language. She spoke slowly, as if choosing each word carefully. “Yes, indeed, everything was fine. We got here this afternoon and found all in order. Thank you.”
We? Gareth wondered automatically. A husband? He felt a prick of dismay. Just then, from behind her, a diminutive young woman dressed in a blue-and-white striped cotton kimono suddenly appeared. She was, he saw, an Oriental—Japanese, of course.
“May I introduce my companion, Mitsuiko Yatasami.”
Ah, the “we,” Gareth thought with relief.
“Nice to meet you both. I brought these,” Gareth said, handing over the bouquets to the young woman, who took them and withdrew. He stood there feeling a bit awkward. Then, as if he needed to explain, he said, “Your garden needs work, and I plan to get it in shape for you.”
“How lovely and how very thoughtful of you, Mr. Montrose,” she said. “And I think I forgot to introduce myself.” She gave a melodic laugh. “I’m Brooke Leslie.”
Gareth would always remember that moment, when he heard her name for the first time. It was as though everything suddenly receded and only that image of her remained. Her voice struck some unknown chord within him, a remembered echo of something he had been searching for all his life and was on the brink of finding. Whatever was happening, he could not quite grasp nor understand it.
Driving back from Arbordale, he could remember little of their conversation other than that he had assured her he would be available should she need anything. He hoped he hadn’t said anything incredibly stupid. She was so utterly composed, so poised, that he simply found himself dazed. He had never felt like that before.
Gareth had never had a serious romance. Still, that evening he knew that he had met someone who would change his life forever.
The very next day Gareth brought vegetables from the garden at Avalon—lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers. Mitsuiko took them, smiling and bowing. Miss Leslie was resting, she told him in her tiny voice. Although disappointed, Gareth said not to disturb her and left.
Back in his pickup, he felt like driving out to Spring Hill to question his sister, find out more about Brooke Leslie. She was so unlike anyone he’d ever met before, so different from his sisters, his cousins, any of the young women he was sometimes pressed to escort to social events he could find no excuse to avoid. He wondered what lay behind that quiet mask, her thoughtful, quiet ways too mature, too reserved, for her years.
Why hadn’t Lynette informed him that the person renting Shadowlawn was someone so … But then he remembered Lynette saying that a realtor had made the arrangements, that neither of them had met the tenant. In a way, Gareth would like it just as well if his sister—or any of the family, for that matter—did not know about Brooke. They would all come rushing over with all sorts of tokens of Southern graciousness. Not that he didn’t value that in his womenfolk. It was just that Brooke was—well, different. To be truthful, he wanted to keep her to himself for a while, like some precious jewel he had come upon. Gareth shook his head in self-ridicule. I’m going over the wall, he thought.
Nevertheless, more and more he found himself leaving the island, rowing over to the mainland, inventing errands, reasons to go by Shadowlawn. His primary excuse was a commitment to get the garden in shape. Actually, he was doing more than he had at first intended.
One sweltering afternoon he had been working hard, weeding and thinning and transplanting some bulbs, when he heard his name called. Wiping his forehead with the back of his arm, he turned to see Brooke Leslie standing on the porch.
“Mr. Montrose, surely it’s much too warm for all that. Can you stop and join me in a glass of lemonade?”
He was too hot and sweaty to sit on the chintz-pillowed wicker chairs, he told her. Instead he sat on the steps, and they had their first real conversation.
“I thought Virginia might be too warm for me this summer. But this place is so shaded, I’ve found it lovely and cool.”
“This is the first time you’ve come here?” Gareth was avid with curiosity about her but was reluctant to ask too many questions.
“No, I came here to boarding school.”
“In the States?”
“Yes, to North Carolina. My parents were teachers at a missionary school in Japan. By their teens, most missionaries’ children are sent home for their education. It is an accepted practice. But I was an only child, and most of my friends were Japanese girls I’d known all my life, so I was terribly homesick. I missed Japan very much, found it difficult to adjust. I stayed just long enough to finish my high school education and then went home.”
There was so much more Gareth wanted to ask, but he was too shy, afraid she might think him too probing.
Just then Mitsuiko glided onto the porch, bowing and apologizing, and told Brooke a package had been delivered for which she had to sign, so whatever else Brooke might have told him about herself was interrupted.
After that day, sharing iced tea or lemonade became a ritual they enjoyed almost every afternoon he worked in the garden at Shadowlawn. It was something Gareth looked forward to eagerly.
Soon the yard and garden were in good shape, requiring only a cutting and trimming once a week. Late one afternoon Gareth found himself restless, wanting to see Brooke Leslie, wondering if somehow he could drop by with some kind of plausible excuse. He racked his brain for some explanation, then decided he’d not even try to make something up. Impulsively he cut a huge bouquet of peonies and drove into Arbordale. As luck would have it, Brooke was lying on the wicker lounge out on the lawn. Because of the leafy maples, the lawn got the shade of the afternoon and was pleasantly cool.
She seemed delighted with the flowers and invited him to stay for iced tea. He drew up one of the lawn chairs and sat down, thinking how exquisite she looked in a peach-colored dress of some floaty material, her dark hair resting against blue-striped pillows.
Mitsuiko brought a tray with a pitcher of tea and tall frosted glasses with wedges of lemon, poured each of them a glass, then glided quietly away.
“I received a lovely note from your sister, my landlady, Mrs. Frank Maynard,” Brooke said, smiling. “She said she would come by when the state legislature takes a recess and she and her husband come home for their summer vacation. I look forward to meeting her.”
“Yes, Lynette is a great girl,” Gareth agreed. “I think you’ll like her. Makes a perfect politician’s wife. You know, gracious, smiling, diplomatic.”
A slight frown drew Brooke’s dark feathery eyebrows together on her smooth brow. “That is unlike Japan. Political wives in Japan are rarely seen. For that matter, wives never socialize with their husbands in Japan. They live very separate existences. Except at home, of course …” She paused. “It is a very different culture.”
“Tell me about Japan,” Gareth prompted. He wanted to know everything about Brooke, where she had lived, what she had experienced. There wasn’t anything about her he considered unimportant or trivial.
She began slowly to tell him. “Japan is a very beautiful country. Very different from America. Even though I’m an American, somehow I feel Japan is my heart’s home. I grew up there, you see, and learned to love it, its people, its customs, at a very early age. I believe those first impressions when a child is still being formed are most important, don’t you?”
Gareth thought of his own early childhood at Avalon, followed by all the years of confusion, uprooting, adjusting to different places, circumstances. Then at twenty-three he’d gone back to live at Avalon by himself. So he thought he understood what Brooke was saying. In a way Avalon was his “heart’s home.”
“There is a strange, wild, dark beauty in the Japanese landscape. You see it, of course, in their paintings—the stroke, the grays, the wash of a black line across white paper, indicating what the imagination can provide. Perhaps it is the mountains always in the background.”
“You talk about it as though—” He paused, not knowing exactly why but feeling some anxiety stir within him.
A thoughtful expression crossed Brooke’s face. Her eyes had a faraway look as she said, “As though I miss it? Yes, I do. Although, I’ve tried to train myself to live in the moment, as the Quakers advise. To be present where you are.” She paused and smiled. “And right now there is a great deal of change happening in Japan. A nationalistic spirit that is very strong. The military is influential, and after the war with China many factions are vying for power.” She sighed. “Of course, in the countryside and where I was in the mountains it remains simple, peaceful. That is what I miss.”
They both fell silent. It was not an uncomfortable silence but a companionable one, as two kindred spirits might enjoy. Fireflies flitted in and out of the bushes, blinking their little lights and creating a magical illusion. Finally Gareth said, “I want to show you my garden. I want you to see Avalon.”
“I’d love to sometime.”
Gareth wanted to set a day and time to do that right then but resisted. After all, Brooke was supposed to be recuperating from her illness, whatever it was, and it did not seem appropriate to push her into making a commitment.