Hidden Paradise

chapter NINETEEN



Peter

Mike Temple was unnervingly an older version of Rob, but not quite as handsome and with dull brown hair instead of Rob’s lovely coppery sheen. He had the appearance of someone who’d made an effort, a cut on his jaw from shaving, although his suit was a little too loose as though depression had made him lose weight. A man who had hit rock bottom, he had dragged himself into a semblance of self-respect and energy, attempting to show himself as a serious candidate for the job.

He sat in the office with a briefcase that Peter suspected was empty except for the résumé he had handed over, a duplicate of the one sent by email.

“Rob thinks the world of this place. It’s nice to see it fixed up.”

“We couldn’t have done it without the help of the village,” Peter responded. “And Rob is a tremendous asset. You must be very proud of him.”

“He does okay.”

Peter bit back a sarcastic rejoinder. “You’ll miss him when he goes to Cambridge.”

Mike made no reply, and Peter gazed at the résumé. His current occupation was unclear—read unemployed—and his last job had been as owner of a line of tanning salons. “This position is quite a bit different from your previous employment.”

“I need a change. I’m good with my hands. I like the outdoors.” This from someone whose pallor suggested he’d barely set foot outside for weeks.

“Your first job would be to renovate the cottage that comes along with the job. It’s nothing fancy but it’s structurally sound, and big enough for one.”

Mike nodded. “Sounds good,” he said with an effort.

“Any questions?” Peter asked, fighting back an urge to grab Mike Temple by the shoulders and shake some life into him. It was like dealing with a zombie. Thank goodness, the door opened and Chris came in. “Ah, here’s my partner.”

He introduced them and let Chris take over the questions. Then he wished he hadn’t.

“It doesn’t say here you declared bankruptcy,” Chris said, pushing the résumé across the desk with a look of disgust.

“It’s nothing to do with my abilities,” Mike said.

“But it might be something to do with this job. It’s quite likely we’d be entrusting some financial dealings to you—ordering supplies, for instance—and we’d need to know whether you were capable of handling it correctly.”

“I’m not a crook,” Mike said with a very slight flash of animation.

“Why did your business fail?” Chris said.

“Supply and demand. People are scared of sun damage now.”

Chris said nothing.

Peter gathered his wits—he’d known Chris to be bitchy but never outright rude—and prepared a polite, noncommittal statement to usher Mike from the office with the promise of a decision within a few days.

But Mike came to life. He rose, his briefcase sliding to the floor. “Who the f*ck do you think you are?” His fists clenched. “You come to this village with your money and think you can treat us like shit. I need this job, you bastards. I’ve lost everything. I’ve lost my house, my wife and my kids hardly give me the time of day. I’ve fallen about as low as I can but I won’t take this crap from you or anyone. You can take this job and your f*cking cottage and shove it up your feudal arse.” He pounded on the desk, leaning forward, his face darkened with rage. “It could be you, you arseholes. People stop coming to this fancy knocking-shop, and then what? You might be begging me for a job.”

He turned and blundered toward the door. Chris, without a word, handed him the briefcase as he passed.

After he left, Peter turned to Chris, shocked. “What’s got into you?”

“He’s trying to ruin the life of his own son,” Chris snapped. “Lou talked to me. He should bloody well feel bad. He’s a ringer for my old man.”

Chris rarely talked of his family and Peter had learned not to ask.

“I thought you didn’t like Rob,” he said feebly.

“It’s nothing to do with whether I like him or not. Give Temple the job if you like.”

“I don’t know whether I should,” Peter said. “He doesn’t make a great first impression. But hell, how many of us take the opportunity to stand up and shout abuse at a job interview? I know I’ve wanted to. Even if he felt he had nothing to lose, he has some guts.”

He went outside to the yard and through the archway to the parking lot, not expecting Mike to still be around, but his car was still there. Mike sat at the wheel, engine running, and Peter was horribly afraid for a moment that he might have run a hose from the tailpipe. But Mike’s face was in his hands, his shoulders moving.

Oh, jeez. Peter gave him a moment, but Mike continued to sob, so he walked forward and tapped on the glass.

Mike looked up, smearing his face with his hands, and glared at Peter with embarrassment and rage, but he lowered the window. “What the hell do you want?”

“The job’s yours if you want it,” Peter said.

“You’ve got to be joking.” Mike fished a rather grubby-looking tissue from the car and blew his nose.

“I’m not. Take it or leave it, but please let me know.” Exasperated, Peter started to walk away, but heard the car door open and close.

“Yes, of course I’ll take it.” He appeared at Peter’s side, holding out a hand. “Sorry about all the yelling back there.”

“No problem,” Peter said, shaking his hand with some reluctance. “You’d better take a look at the cottage.”

“I’m bringing my youngest to live there,” Mike said with a challenge in his eye.

“I’m afraid we don’t provide child care,” Peter said, thinking he’d better check out the insurance policy.

“That’s okay. Rob’ll help out.”

“Until he goes to Cambridge,” Peter said. “And he does have other duties here.”

“Right.”

This had all the makings of a disaster.

Mike peered over Peter’s shoulder. “Oh, hi there, Rob. God, you look a right fairy.”

“It’s livery. Get over it,” Rob replied.

“Bloody hell, I won’t have to dress up like that, will I?” Mike looked horrified.

“The position doesn’t require livery,” Peter said, but couldn’t resist adding, “unless we call you into the house for additional duties. Mike, please call me to arrange when you’d like to move in, and I’d suggest without your child until you’ve got it fixed up. It’s a bit primitive. Rob, why don’t you show your father the cottage?”

Rob scowled. “Okay.”

Father and son moved off together through the woodland, Rob’s shoulders rigid, Mike strolling, hands in pockets and whistling, as though five minutes ago he hadn’t been sobbing his heart out in despair and rage.

Hoping he hadn’t made a terrible mistake, Peter returned to the office.

Chris, at his laptop, sent him a bright smile. “What happened? I sent Rob out to find you. I thought he should have advance warning that his old man was on the premises.”

“Oh, dear God.” Peter sank into his chair. “I sometimes feel as if I’m in a soap opera.”

“Just wait until the ball tonight. Fresh meat for Sarah, some sort of showdown between Mac and Lou and Rob—”

“What? What have Rob and Lou been up to? Oh, shit. It’s three o’clock. Are the caterers and florists here?”

“All here and all under control. Calm down, lover. The only thing we can’t control is the volatility of our guests. You’re supposed to meet Lou and the Paint Boys about two minutes ago for a discussion of the mystery room of the fancy knocking-shop.”

“Oh, lord, so I am,” said Peter, checking his watch. “Give me a kiss.”

Chris reached for him and the kiss turned into something far sexier and intense than a peck on the cheek.

“Wow,” Peter said when he came up for air. “What was all that about?”

“I behaved like an arse,” Chris said. “It’s an apology. A promise. I love you, and later tonight, when we get the chance to catch our breath, I’ll show you how much.”

“I love you, too,” Peter said.

He passed through the foyer, which would combine with the drawing room and dining room, connected doors fully open, to form the ballroom. The caterers were at work, assisted by the footmen and others recruited from the staff of the agricultural college a dozen miles away, unloading glasses and tables and chairs to take to the terrace where supper would be served. Others arranged furniture and assembled a dais for the musicians. The florists hung swags of flowers on the staircase and twined them around the pillars, and a dozen or so huge vases of flowers stood in the center of the foyer to be arranged around the rooms.

Di the lady’s maid wove her way toward the staircase, a pile of shimmering gowns in her arms. She gave him a clumsy sort of curtsy as she passed, and hoisted the hem of her own gown to ascend the stairs.

Already some media had arrived, with video cameras and microphones and those fluffy sound things that looked like bottle brushes. One of the footmen, that boy Ivan who always seemed to have such a bulge in his breeches (well, Peter couldn’t help noticing these things) was keeping an eye on them. Later Peter would give interviews and Chris would direct their own videographer… He let his mind wander to the terrifying list of responsibilities connected with this evening. They really needed someone with solid media experience to run that side of things for them, someone who truly understood what Paradise Hall was about and could put the right sort of spin on stories.

The noise subsided as he walked through to the wing where the Paint Boys were set up. The room they were concerned with opened from their workroom/lab, a smaller and indeterminate room built onto the back of the house. Until recently, paint and ladders and other supplies had been stored there, since it had a door that opened to the outside and a ponderous Victorian sink with hefty iron faucets. The walls were covered with unpleasant green paint and a single lightbulb hung from the ceiling.

Outside in the small meadow next to the kitchen garden, a couple of guys sparred, wearing boxing gloves and stripped to the waist. Out of force of habit, Peter paused to check out their physiques and admire the contrast between Billy Blue the boxing instructor and his pupil, Mac. Very nice.

Lou stood at the doorway, checking them out, too, but she pretended she wasn’t, which made him smile.

“It’s a bit of a problem,” Jon was saying. “Oh, hi, Peter. We can’t date this room. We’ve uncovered an older fireplace, which is probably original, but it’s not very impressive, is it? Rather small and messy. We could get the linoleum off the floor—although it’s pretty much off in so many places—and pull up the floorboards and see if anything interesting turns up.”

“According to the house plan,” Simon said, gesturing at a facsimile of the oldest plan they possessed, “in 1841 this was the housekeeper’s room, and plumbing wasn’t put in until the early twentieth century. It’s a rubbish room, my dears. Let’s tart it up and do an exhibit here and you can charge the great unwashed a quid a head to come in.”

“Absolutely not,” Peter said. “Free admission for all. We’re giving back to the community, remember. At least, if the grant comes through so we can actually afford the money to do it and hire a curator, we’ll be giving back to the community. Why, we might even offer you the job, Lou, my dear.”

She was staring at the wall. “You’re all wrong,” she said. “This isn’t a nothing room. Look at that doorway. It has an arch above it, bricked in.”

“We know, dear,” Simon said.

“Okay. Imagine, oh, I’d think three such doors. Only, they aren’t doors, they’re triple-hung arched windows. I bet if you got that plumbing and plaster off, you’d find them underneath. What’s outside?” She opened the door and they saw her outside, pacing, and examining the wall and ground.

“Southern elevation!” Jon cried. He and Simon exchanged a significant look and rushed outside to join Lou. A lot of gesturing and exclamations of excitement followed.

“What’s going on here?” Peter asked, bewildered by the historians’ antics as they came back in.

“As I suspected, you have a layer of late-nineteenth-century brick on the outside but a nice big dressed stone ledge at the bottom of the wall,” Lou said.

“Tell him, dear,” Simon said.

“You have a hidden Georgian conservatory,” she said. “That’s why the fireplace is so small, because you’d probably have a stove in this room. You should restore it, Peter.”

“Oh, absolutely,” he said. “And we can still use it as part of the exhibit area—whenever we get the funding. How wonderful! Do you think we could get it done by Christmas? Think how marvelous it would look with banks of poinsettias and narcissi.”

“Make it into a gift shop,” Lou said.

Jon and Simon were having one of their shorthand conversations from which Peter gathered they were thinking of sacrificing dinner and some of the evening’s festivities to knock down plaster. He turned to Lou and wondered whether he, too, was beaming with excitement. “I guess we’ll have to use the other room as an exhibit room now. I do like your idea of different styles and wallpapers. Could you work me up a proposal?”

“Look, that’s really sweet of you, Peter, but I’m not a historian. Not really. I’m an Austen scholar. Get the Paint Boys to do it.”

“You could write your dissertation here,” he wheedled.

She made a face. “I don’t even want to think about my dissertation.”

“So come here and write something else then.”

“I would if I could think of something original to say and if I were able to leave the ranch and if you had funding.” She sighed. “Too many ifs. I’m filthy from poking around in that fireplace. I’d better go and change for the ball.”

Peter had always thought that Julian would be here for the opening ball, with Lou radiant on his arm, his best friends and the most handsome couple there. He wondered, from the look of sadness on her face, whether she was thinking of that, too. But she leaned to kiss his cheek, reminded him that he’d engaged her for the first two dances, and went off to get ready.