Chapter Nine
Emma Lee Maxwell’s Facebook Update:
Did you know when two people are in love and stare into each other’s eyes, their heartbeats synch? Isn’t that romantic? Sigh.
Once Knightley climbs into his car and backs out of the driveway, I collapse onto the overstuffed velvet sofa, kick off my boots, and take in the living room. The focal point of the room is the fireplace, made of honey-colored stone with a wood mantel stained the same color as the dark, rough-hewn beams crisscrossing the ceiling. The fireplace is flanked by floor-to-ceiling built-ins, the shelves loaded with leather-bound books and framed photographs, grainy black-and-white shots that illustrate my aunt’s colorful life. Besides the velvet sofa, there are two armchairs, a pair of antique Chippendale side tables, and a large, tufted ottoman serving as a coffee table. A stack of glossy coffee-table books is arranged atop the ottoman, along with a silver tray and a porcelain tea set. The scarred wooden floor is covered with a thick Persian rug. Oil paintings in tarnished gilt wood frames hang on the walls, portraits of people long dead, a pinch-faced elderly man in a periwig, a pretty girl in a starched Elizabethan ruff, and a dashing soldier in uniform, his hand resting on the hilt of his sword.
The room is chic without being pretentious, which is how I would have described my aunt. Cultivated, but warm and welcoming. Sitting in this room, surrounded by her belongings, makes me feel happy. In her will, Aunt Patricia asked us not to waste time weeping at her passing. Instead, she wrote, remember the joy I brought to your lives and pay it forward by bringing joy into the lives of others. That should be my legacy, and yours. My sisters cried when Mr. Hastings read those words. I didn’t. Aunt Patricia’s words, her simple, selfless directive, freed my heart from the heavy burden of grief. Be happy. Be light. Lawd knows I miss my aunt and my daddy, but they would not have wanted me to sit around shredding Kleenex. They would have wanted me to get outta myself, think of others. So that’s what I have been trying to do.
I wander around the cottage, checking in each room, opening every wardrobe. It might sound silly, but I have never lived by myself and I’m a little weirded out. I went from living with my daddy to living in the sorority house to living with my sister.
I open the door at the top of the stairs, expecting to find a master suite decorated in the same sophisticated style as the living room, but that is not what I find. Not even close. To say my aunt went in a different direction with the décor of her bedroom would be like saying Kylie Jenner has had a little plastic surgery. Huge understatement. Huge. The bones of the room are the same—wooden floor, exposed beam ceiling, low, multipaned windows—but the plastic surgery has rendered it a completely different creature. Just as Kylie didn’t know when to stop with the lip injections, my aunt didn’t know when to stop with the florals. Floral wallpaper, floral drapes, floral bedspreads, a profusion of frilly floral pillows. It’s like an English country garden vomited all over the room. I like girly girl. I do girly girl. But the frenzy of floral might be too much frill even for me. Also, there are two twin canopy beds instead of one large queen. Odd choice for a master. So, I close the door and continue my exploration of the second floor in search of the main bedroom. I find a cozy sitting room with a flat-screen television hung over a small fireplace and two more bedrooms, decorated with the same amount of girly-girl enthusiasm, one in chintz, the other in powdery-pink toile. All the bedrooms contain twin beds. It’s like a sorority house for shabby but seriously chic sisters. I wish I had a few sisters to share my cottage. It’s a little lonely—and spooky—up here all by myself.
I head back downstairs, determined to start a fire that will chase away the cold and make the empty house feel more like home. Several minutes—and books of matches—later and I’ve only managed to coax a wispy flame from the mound of wadded up newspaper, kindling, and logs.
I stand up and brush the newsprint and ash from my hands.
“Fires are highly overrated anyway,” I say aloud, tossing the empty matchbook onto the ottoman. “What I need is a good cup of tea.”
The kitchen turns out to be one of the coziest, most inviting rooms in the house, with a low, exposed-beam ceiling and an old stone floor. There is a long rectangular table and upholstered parson’s chairs, and an antique cabinet filled with delicate bone china patterned with birds perched on branches. The cabinets are painted robin’s egg blue and there’s an iron stove, also painted robin’s egg blue. If Martha Stewart bought a cottage in the Cotswolds, her kitchen would probably look like this one.
I pad over to the refrigerator and look at all the goodies Isabella left—a wedge of Somerset cheddar cheese, a bowl of pears that appear as if they were just plucked off their branches, a whole roasted chicken, a jar of clotted cream, all the fixings for a salad, a bag of artisan pasta, plump, juicy tomatoes . . . A cake plate sits on the counter beside the refrigerator, a tower of lemon-zested scones artfully arranged under the glass dome. There’s a basket filled with a variety of teas, ajar of honey, a cellophane bag of lumpy demerara sugar cubes, ajar of Nutella, and a loaf of rustic bread.
I find a teakettle in a cabinet, fill it with water, and carry it to the stove. Only the stove isn’t like any stove I’ve ever seen. There are no dials.
I set the kettle on top of the stove and pad back into the living room, pull my iPhone out of my purse, and snap a picture of the stove. My sister Tara is a chef. She knows how to make a gourmet meal on a campfire. True story: she made tender belly pork braised in sriracha and ale in the Memorial Stadium parking lot using only a camp stove. It was the best meal my sorority sisters and cheer squad ever had at a tailgate.
Text to Tara Maxwell:
OMG! Look at this stove. It’s ancient. Isabella said Northam-on-the-Water dates to the Roman Age. I think this stove is from that era. What do I do to make it work? Pray to Vulcan, god of fire?
It’s still early in Charleston, but Tara will be up. Her job as a food features reporter for WCSC, the Lowcountry’s news leader, requires her to wake up before the crack of dawn. While I wait for her response, I send a group text to Kristin and Maddie. Kristin talked Maddie into joining her in a thirty-day squat challenge. Yesterday was day one.
Text from Madison Van Doren:
If my thighs are going to ache this bad, it should be from doing something more enjoyable, like . . . Liam Hemsworth.
Text from Kristin Carmichael:
Liam Hemsworth? Really?
Text to Kristin Carmichael, Madison Van Doren:
What’s wrong with Liam?
Text from Kristin Carmichael:
I’ve heard Aussie guys aren’t very big . . . you know . . . Down Under.
Text from Madison Van Doren:
Whatev. I’ll take Liam.
Text from Kristin Carmichael:
. . . and I will take Orlando Bloom. Thank you very much.
Text to Kristin Carmichael, Madison Van Doren:
GTG. Happy squatting!
Text from Kristin Carmichael:
650 by the end of the month!
My phone rings. It’s Tara. “Hello?”
“That’s an Aga, you dork.”
“What’s an Aga?”
“The stove.” She laughs. “It’s an oil-operated stove and it is very expensive.”
“So it’s not a Roman relic?”
“No.”
“There are no buttons or dial thingies. Do you know how to start it?”
“Yes, and I am pretty sure it doesn’t involve praying to the god of fire.”
I pad back into the kitchen. There are four square doors on the front of the stove. Tara tells me to open the top left door and then rattles off the instructions for lighting Aunt Patricia’s Roman stove, six steps that involve opening oil pipe valves and lighting a wick with a match.
“Are you sure I’m supposed to use a match? I thought you weren’t supposed to light a match around gas.”
“It’s oil, not gas.”
“If this Roman stove explodes and I burn to death, I will not be waiting for you in the light. I mean it. Do not look for me in heaven.”
“You’ll be fine. Just follow my instructions.”
I switch to speakerphone and stare skeptically at the stove.
“Do you remember what I told you about the Kappa Kappa Gamma charity barbecue, when Kristin put too much charcoal fluid on the coals and fried her eyelashes and eyebrows clean off her face? I’m not gonna lie, Tara, she looked freakish. Like an alien. It took months for them to grow back.”
“Are there any open containers of charcoal fluid sitting around the cottage?”
I look around.
“No.”
“Then you’ll be fine.”
With Tara listening on the line, I pretend to go through the steps for lighting the stove. I pretend to open the oil valves and flip a switch on the electrical control box. I pretend to turn a dial thingie and push a clickie button.
“Now, you have to wait for the oil to reach the burner,” Tara says. “Give it about fifteen minutes, open the flap on the burner, and light the wick with a match.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s it,” Tara says.
“Easy-peasy.”
“Lemon squeezy!” Tara chirps. “Gotta go. Text if you need the instructions again . . . or if you want me to order you an eyebrow pencil and some falsies from Sephora.”
“Ha ha.”
“Bye.”
“Kisses.”
I hang up and bend over, looking at the reflection of my eyebrows in the shiny copper teakettle. It has taken me years of dedicated plucking to achieve the perfect arch. Don’t laugh. Brow shaping is a delicate art. Overenthusiastic plucking at the ends results in stunted, comma-shaped brows, under the arches results in angry brow. Lord knows I love me some Michelle Obama, but the former FLOTUS was working some serious angry brows during the 2008 election season, harsh upside-down Vs that gave her a perpetual scowl.
“Sorry, Earl Grey, you might be hot, but you are not worth the risk,” I say, carrying the teakettle to the sink and pouring out the water. “Brows over brews, baby.”
I know! I will go to that cute little tea shop on High Street. A brisk walk in the rain. A chance to shake off the jet lag and test out my new wellies. The perfect opportunity to mix and mingle with my neighbors, meet my future besties.
* * *
Half an hour later, I am standing in a long line outside Call Me Darjeeling. A popular tour bus company stops in Northam-on-the-Water for their midday break, and the teahouse is at the top of their must-visit list. I chat with the tour guide while waiting for my table, and she tells me the best place in the Cotswolds to get a trim and highlights (Llewelyn James in Cheltenham), who makes the tastiest curry takeout (Goopta Goopta in Moreton-on-Marsh), and where to spot celebs (the Swan in Southrop, a posh country pub that serves locally sourced delicacies like potted pheasant and mutton leg with Jerusalem artichokes).
Jamie Dornan lives in Charlford, near Stroud. Princess Anne and her daughter, Prince Harry’s fab and fashionable cousin, Zara Phillips, live in Tetbury.
“I didn’t realize the Cotswolds attracted celebrities.”
“Loads of them,” she says. “Liz Hurley. Richard E. Grant. Patrick Stewart. Hugh Grant. Kate Moss. Kate Winslet.”
“Kate Winslet? Shut up!”
“Serious.”
“The same Kate Winslet who played Rose DeWitt Bukater in Titanic? The same Kate Winslet who is BFFs with Leo DiCaprio? That Kate Winslet?”
“The one and only.”
“Dying. Dy-ing.” I wave my hand in front of my flushed cheeks. “If you say Queen Kate lives in Northam-on-the-Water, I am going to keel over. Dead. Just step over my body on your way to your table.”
She laughs.
“Close,” she says, laughing. “Her home is just up the road, in Church Westcote, but I’ve seen her here, in the sweet shop on High Street.”
“Kate Winslet eats candy.” I look over at the sweet shop. “Stars. They’re just like us!”
I demolish a pot of Earl Grey and a cheddar and tomato chutney sandwich before heading over to Victoria’s Candy Emporium. The teahouse was too busy for mixing with the locals, but I am confident I am going to meet my future BFF in the sweet shop. Maybe Kate Winslet will be there, arms loaded with candy. She will drop a bag of Lemon Sherbets. I will pick it up. She will thank me. She will notice my American accent and we will get to talking, you know, about the challenges of living a bicoastal life. She will invite me to her house for tea. We will hit it off, and the next thing you know, I will be chilling in Saint-Tropez with her and her bestie, Leo.
A woman with two rainbow-colored candy canes protruding from her messy topknot greets me as I walk through the door. She’s wearing black-framed hipster eyeglasses, a short A-line skirt, a button-down blouse, and thick, dark tights embroidered with lollipops. Definitely not Kate Winslet.
“Welcome to Victoria’s Candy Emporium.” She smiles, and her glasses slide down her nose. “The queen of all candy stores, from the Cotswolds to Calcutta.”
Knightley wasn’t exaggerating when he described the owner of the sweet shop as irreverent and quirky.
“You must be Deidre,” I say, smiling.
“Guilty.”
“I’m Emma Lee Maxwell and I just moved into—”
She runs across the store and throws her arms around my shoulders.
“Emma Lee Maxwell! I cannot believe it! You are here. You are in Northam!” She stops hugging me, pushes her glasses up her nose, and grins. “We were supposed to meet tonight, at Welldon Abbey, but I think this is a more marvelous way to meet, don’t you? Serendipitous encounters are the best, aren’t they? So, what brings you into my shop? Of all the sweet shops in all the towns in all the world, you walk into mine. What are the odds?”
I don’t bother pointing out Victoria’s Candy Emporium is the only sweet shop in the village, and Northam-on-the-Water is the only village within walking distance from Wood House, because it would be like sticking a big old pin in her shiny happy balloon. Instead, I grab her hand and give it a squeeze.
“I had a feeling I was going to meet a forever friend today, and it looks as if I was right. I am so glad to meet you, Deidre.”
“Do you mean it?” She looks at me through her glasses, wide-eyed and unblinking. “Do you really?”
I am a very good judge of character, and I judge Deidre Waites’s character to be good, very good. She has a sweetness that rivals any of the treats in her shop.
“I mean it.” I smile. “Now, what do you say you hook a sister up with a bag of Lemon Sherbets, the same Lemon Sherbets you sell to Kate Winslet.”
I pay for the Lemon Sherbets and then Deidre and I chat. Actually, Deidre chats and I listen, and listen and listen. I learn she attended Cambridge with hopes of becoming a history professor but had to return to Northam-on-the-Water to run the candy shop after her father died of a sudden heart attack and her mother was diagnosed with macular degeneration. She has a complex love/hate relationship with Queen Victoria, is a walking encyclopedia on all things Victoriana, and has vehement opinions about the barbarism of colonialism. She enjoys music, gardening, and birdwatching, but taking care of the shop and her nearly blind mother leaves her little time to indulge those passions. She loves to read and is a member of Isabella’s All Austen Book Club. She doesn’t have a boyfriend, but “rather fancies a certain gentleman.” She refuses to tell me his name.
I am sucking on a Lemon Sherbet and walking back to Wood House when it hits me: Serendipity didn’t lead me to the sweet shop so I could buy a bag of overpriced lemon candy or claim Deidre Waites as my new BFF. Serendipity led me to Victoria’s Candy Emporium so I could find Deidre Waites a man. A man who shares her passion for learning. Someone creative and colorful. Someone selfless.
I stick my hand in my coat pocket and feel a small, folded piece of paper.
Johnny Amor! Johnny Amor, the Oxford dropout who spends his days helping his best friend launch an indie book business, the would-be musician who spends his nights singing in pubs.
I unfold the paper, look at William Amor’s tight, neat scrawl, and try not to squeal with giddy, triumphant delight. I pull my iPhone out of my pocket and dial Johnny Amor’s number. It goes directly to voice mail. Should I leave a message? What do I say? Hey there, Johnny! I met your granddaddy at JFK while waiting for a flight to London and he gave me your number. Give me a call so I can introduce you to your future wife. For reals.
I hang up without leaving a message. Mental note: Call Johnny Amor as soon as possible. Johnny Amor, would-be musician, doesn’t know it yet, but I am about to rock his world.