The White Garden: A Novel of Virginia Woolf

Chapter Ten

PETER LLEWELLYN STOOD WAITING OUTSIDE THE auction-house entrance. The change in his expression when Jo pulled up in the borrowed Bentley — there were mini Connaught flags flying from the headlamps, as though she were a Head of State — was comical to behold.

“Shall we take tea?” he asked once the chauffeur had evicted her to the paving and resumed his privileged post behind the wheel.

“Sure. I could use a little caffeine. I’m not used to wine in the middle of the day.”

“That’s rather reassuring, in the circumstances. That you aren’t a habitual drinker, I mean. Walk or taxi?”

She’d expected Sotheby’s café again. “Let’s walk.”

They set off down New Bond Street, Jo conscious of a sudden shyness. It had been an unsettling day. And there was all of London around her — this extraordinary city — the strangeness of the man beside her, kind as he was; the unexpectedness of Gray, waiting for her in an empty hotel suite.

“Do you like macaroons?” Llewellyn asked unexpectedly.

“Very much.”

“Smashing. We’ll have lots, shall we?”

She smiled, then noticed how he ducked his head as though from a physical blow; Americans, she recalled, were accused of smiling too much. She would have to curb her impulse in the future.

“You mentioned you were done with my notebook,” she ventured.

“I did.” He walked swiftly, with his blond head slightly bowed; a slim figure, unconsciously graceful. He might almost have been striding along alone — except that she was aware of him almost imperceptibly shepherding her through the crowd. “Miss Bellamy, would you describe yourself as a person of integrity?”

“Does my tea depend on it?”

He grimaced. “I’m feeling rather as though I’ve gone out on a limb. I don’t suppose you understand me.”

“You want to know if I’m honest.” She tried to think objectively. “I have a great deal of integrity about my work — getting it right, for myself and the people who hire me. I would like to think I treat the people I love with honesty. But…” She hesitated, aware of conflict in her soul, Gray hovering over her. “I’m not perfect. I make mistakes. All the time.”

“Which is in itself the most honest thing you could say. Thank you.”

They dashed through traffic in Piccadilly and then into the Burlington Arcade. He was leading her to a place called Ladurée, a bright shining birdcage of a room filled with pastel-colored French pastries, melt-in-the-mouth macaroons for which Paris was famous.

“Opened recently,” Llewellyn murmured. “We’re not too sure about it. Londoners, I mean. Suspicious of anything too French. I got over that, myself, years ago.”

They chose a plateful of exotic flavors from the rows of coat-button–size confections and sat down at a tiny table, their knees almost touching, to wait for a pot of tea. When it came, Jo closed her eyes and allowed the bergamot fragrance of Earl Grey to drift to her nostrils. “I should bring some of this home to my grandmother. She loves British tea.”

“Masterpiece Theatre fan?”

“Military nurse. She was stationed here for years during the war. Never got over it.”

“Ah!” His expression, which had been curiously concentrated when he looked at Jo, suddenly relaxed. “That’s all right, then. I suppose she gave you this?”

He had drawn the notebook out of his coat pocket and held it before her like a flag.

“Nana? How could she? I found it at Sissinghurst!”

“So you said.” Llewellyn lifted the teapot carefully and refilled his cup. “Only, you see, it doesn’t work. I wish it did, because you’ve said you’re honest and I like you, Miss Bellamy. I’d hoped we could deal frankly with one another.”

Jo felt her face suffuse with heat. Carefully, she set down her half-finished macaroon and wiped her fingers on her napkin. “I don’t lie, Mr. Llewellyn. What about the notebook doesn’t work?”

“It doesn’t square with the evidence, I’m afraid. The historic record of Woolf’s life.” He took a sip of tea. “Whoever wrote this went to a great deal of trouble — the notebook itself is authentically of the period, the ink is probably prewar, although we’d have to verify that chemically; the language is similar to the sort of stuff Woolf wrote to be just plausible — ”

“Then why — ”

“Indeed, certain phrases and passages might almost have been lifted straight from her work — and probably were,” he added hurriedly. “Then there’s the references to Lady Nicolson and her family, their shared past, Woolf’s novel Orlando, which is dedicated to Vita — and so on and so forth.”

“So what’s — ”

“It’s clearly a forgery, I’m afraid.”

“Why?”

“You honestly don’t know? You never noticed?”

Jo frowned.

“Open to the first page, Miss Bellamy, and read out the date.”

She did as she was told.

“Twenty-nine March 1941,” she read, “Sissinghurst. What’s so wrong about that?”

Llewellyn leaned across the table. His gray eyes were studying her with something like pity. He had not touched his macaroons.

“Do you know when Virginia Woolf drowned herself in the River Ouse?”

Jo shook her head.

“The day before your notebook starts — March twenty-eight, 1941.”