The Brontë Plot (15 page)

“I think I am. This conversation has been quite restorative.” Helen patted Oscar's head and stood. “Shall we?”

Chapter 15

D
illon pulled up to a corner off Bloomsbury Square. “Here you are, ladies.” He caught Lucy's eye. “Text or call when you want to be picked up.”

“Thank you, Dillon.” Lucy held his gaze a moment longer to convey greater meaning. In returning to the hotel, gathering Helen, chatting about the trip and their plans, Haworth and the possibility of the Lake District, Dillon never once made a gesture, intonation, or suggestion that he knew something secret. Lucy wanted to hug him with gratitude.

She offered him a broad, deliberate smile and slid from the backseat behind Helen. He pulled away, leaving them on the end of a large square with a broad walking path straight through the center. “This is a lot of ground to cover.”

“Then let's begin.” Helen marched forward.

Lucy pulled out her phone. “It's a minefield of blue historical plaques and it'll be impossible to see them all, but I made my own little tour so we could catch the best, in my mind,
with the least amount of walking. Unless you've already seen all this?”

“No one in my family reads like I do and it never interested them. This will be new for both of us.”

“According to the notes I made, this is Bloomsbury Square, but it's not actually where all the action happened.” Lucy lowered her voice. “Wait till I tell you . . . So much intrigue.”

She led Helen across the square's center and headed for the opposite side. People filled the benches, sat on blankets, and strolled along the paths, enjoying the day. Lucy drew a breath in through her nose and caught the fresh scents of mulch, blooms, and cut grass.
New beginnings
. “This must be one of the first truly warm days of spring. Doesn't it feel that way? Like everything's waking up?”

“Absolutely lovely,” Helen wheezed.

Lucy slowed the pace and they continued on to Bedford Place. “Everyone lived here, from writers to statesmen, from inventors to royalty. Dickens to the Bloomsbury Group and beyond . . . And there's our first Blue Plaque.” Lucy surveyed her notes. “That one is for T. S. Eliot. He worked at a publishing house there for a number of years. That's where his crazy wife poured hot chocolate in the mail slot.”

“She did?”

“I don't remember exactly what happened to her, but she either died or was committed, because he proposed to his second wife in those offices as well.”

Lucy led on, through Russell Square, and upon reaching Gordon Square, she stopped. “Here it is. The heart of the Bloomsbury Group. You wouldn't believe who lived along here.”

“Virginia Stephen and her sister, Vanessa, Clive Bell, Lytton Strachey, John Maynard Keynes . . . Shall I continue?” Helen winked.

“Of course you'd know.”

“For many years, these were my favorite writers. They were daring and expressive—and their exploits even more so.” She pointed to the Blue Plaque for John Maynard Keynes. “Number 46. Did you read about this house?”

“I did. Before he owned it, Virginia Woolf and her sister lived here, when she was still a Stephens. Your ‘Bloomsberries' had a very good time in this house.”

Helen nodded. “I once read something that described them as ‘couples who live in squares and have triangular relationships.' I don't remember who said it, but it stuck with me.” Helen looked back into the square and turned to a bench on their left. “Do you mind if we sit?”

“Of course not.” Lucy sat then bounced back up. “Wait here.”

She raced back a few minutes later with a small brown bag. “I noticed a bookshop back there and thought we needed a little reading material.” She pulled out a thin broad book,
Bloomsbury at Home
, and scanned the pages. Helen sat with her eyes closed.

“Oh . . . Listen to this. ‘We were full of experiments and reforms. We were going to do without table napkins; we were going to paint; to write; to have coffee after dinner instead of tea at nine o'clock. Everything was going to be new; everything was going to be different. Everything was on trial.' Isn't that marvelous?” Lucy flipped to the back of the book. “The author, Todd, attributes this to Woolf's
Moments of Being
.”

Lucy kept reading. “You know, some of this seems sad to me too.”

“How so?”

“For all the creativity and the fun, there were lots of affairs and they . . . No one seems happy.” Lucy scanned the pages.

“They were brilliant, but there was an edge to them too. Not sharp and clear, but sharp and pointed somehow. I think each was probably quite alone, but together at the same time.”

Helen's quiet comment seeped deep into Lucy. She laid the book in her lap, leaned back, and watched clouds chase each other across the sky. Their movement made light dance through the leaves of trees above.

“Aloneness can creep up on you. Some is good and creative; I see that in Sid. He needs that time. But too much isn't a good thing. To have someone know you, really know you, that's a nice thing, I think.” Lucy kept her gaze trained on the clouds and light.

“I agree.”

“Can I ask a personal question?” Lucy shifted on the bench.

Helen leaned toward her. “Of course. Otherwise you and I won't have much to say, will we?”

“Were you alone? Is that why you question if Charles knew you loved him, because you kept something back and, therefore, you felt alone and by default he must have too?”

Helen held Lucy in a long, steady look. “That's exactly how it was.”

Lucy slid the book inside her bag. “I can understand that.”

“You seem a little young.”

“I doubt age has much to do with it. I mean, can't one feel
that way around parents or siblings or even out to dinner with good friends?”

“I suppose that's true.” Helen faced the garden again. “Who would you say knows you?”

“I was just thinking about that and I'm not sure. My mom, I guess, but even there, we think so differently that I'm not sure she can. Sid, to a degree—a great degree. I have a few friends who do, one in particular. I've known her since we were eight—that's when my dad left and Mom and I stopped moving. And James . . . I'd hoped and, I think, I let him in.” Lucy twisted toward Helen. “And you stepped into that one all on your own.”

Helen laughed. “It was completely my fault and we will leave him here.” She patted the bench beside her then stood. “Are you ready to press on?”

They crossed to Tavistock Square and headed toward Virginia Woolf's statue in the far corner.

“Look.” Lucy pointed to a huge stone and redbrick building at the north end of the garden. “Tavistock House. Dickens lived there. He wrote . . .” She tapped open her phone. “
Bleak House
,
Hard Times
,
Little Dorrit,
and
A Tale of Two Cities
all while living there.

“I blame my dad for my love of Dickens,” Lucy continued. “Dickens was his favorite. We only read
A Christmas Carol
together, but he always said”—Lucy dropped her voice low—“ ‘Dickens loved people best. He always gave the little man a way out.' When I read a bunch of Dickens in college, I finally got what he meant.” She squeezed Helen's arm for emphasis. “Did you know Dickens never killed his bad guys? Well, he killed off one. The others were cowards, bullies, minor villains, and
general degenerates, but they were worth something and they lived. If they didn't change on the page and find redemption, they lived with that promise still out there.”

“I never made that connection.”

“Hmm . . . Dad did. I suspect it's because he found comfort in it.” Lucy peered down at Helen. “That's why I still contend the Lake District is a worthy stop for you. All those stories define us, and judging from your figurines, Beatrix Potter defined you.”

“True . . .” Helen strolled on.

“I—” Lucy stopped. She couldn't bring herself to try again. She didn't want to. “Helen?” Lucy caught up in a step. “What did your PI tell you about my family? The one you hired to find the Parrish family.”

“Nothing. He found the Parrishes from the name on the front and all the initials scrolled inside.” Helen must have caught Lucy's doubt. “Why?”

“I thought that, because of Ollie, you might have learned something, and I'd like to know something that's true. Proven true. Because I believe you. I believe you, but everything you tell me contradicts all my childhood stories. My dad told me my grandfather was a watchmaker, a craftsman, an artisan.”

“Why can't that still be true?”

“Because he lied for a living.” Lucy started walking again. “Didn't James tell you?” At Helen's confused head shake, she continued. “My dad was a con man. Hence the double emotional whammy of learning your version of my grandfather.”

Helen stopped walking.

“My dad even spent some time in jail. I don't know what
for, but I like to think it's because fact and fiction got mixed up with him and he got beyond his ability to straighten things out. My mom says that's an excuse. And it is, but . . .”

“But he's your father and that's what we do.”

Lucy bit her lip. “I'm surprised James didn't tell you.”

“Why would he? That was your father, not you. He said something about learning stories from your father and you've said something like that before, but I didn't quite understand.”

“I learned a lot from my father.” Lucy tried to remember that first moment. When had that first drop of ink fallen on a page? And why had she done it? She couldn't find it and wasn't sure what difference it might make now.

When Lucy returned her focus to the world, she found herself staring straight at the bust of Virginia Woolf. “She doesn't look very happy, does she?”

“I think we know she wasn't,” Helen agreed.

“Enough.” Lucy huffed. “I'm ready for food.” She immediately regretted her hasty words and rude tone. “There's the sign for Tavistock Place. Bloomsbury Coffee House is right down the block. Would you like to get tea?”

“I might need coffee instead.”

“Me too, really.”

As they passed down the short residential block with a few unassuming storefronts and brightly painted doors, Lucy was determined to be light, bright, and stick to her role as consultant. Anything else wasn't her job and it wasn't helpful. And, she couldn't deny, all this thinking made her head hurt.

Helen stopped at a Blue Plaque above a red door. “Vladimir Lenin? Here?”

“Hang on a sec.” Lucy pulled out her phone. “He lived here while reading at the British Museum in 1908, and the plaque went up, ‘amongst great controversy,' in 2012.”

“The red door is quite fitting, don't you think?” Helen quipped.

As Lucy pushed open the door of the Bloomsbury Coffee House, a rich warmth enveloped them. Smells of earthy coffee overlay sugar, yeast, and the sharp tang of sourdough. She ordered a slice of carrot cake with a rich cream cheese frosting and watched as Helen coated her toasted sourdough with bright homemade jam.

Lucy wiggled on the uncushioned chair, settling in, and regarded the small basement café. “It's charming, but not what I expected. It seems more like a hangout coffee shop down in Hyde Park—Chicago's, not London's.”

“We're basically on a college campus here too, so that makes sense. I like it. I feel young.” Helen took a bite. “And this is marvelous jam.”

Lucy looked from her cake and found Helen staring. “Do I have cream cheese on my nose?” She touched it with her napkin then ran the napkin around her entire face.

“No. I think I've upset you and I'm sorry for that. I knew, at some level, this would be hard and maybe it was selfish of me to tell you and invite you on this trip, but you're a part of this somehow. You, not just your grandfather. After all, your green eyes brought us here.” Helen smiled. “But I didn't anticipate it would cause you such pain.”

Lucy played with the crumbs on her plate. Minutes passed. “Do you believe that generations can be bad? Emily Brontë
did . . . And actually, if you look at all the Brontë stories, they each did to some degree.”

Helen pressed her lips together.

Lucy slouched low and bonked her forehead on the table. “I sound ridiculous, but you're right, it does hurt—not hearing about my grandfather, but making all the connections down the generations to me. And I criticize my dad for living in stories and now I compare my life and family tree to
Wuthering Heights.
But that's what's upsetting. Where do they end and I begin? My family, not the stories.”

“You are your own person and I wouldn't worry about the stories. We all compare our lives to them. That's why we love them; they help us understand ourselves.”

“There is a line though.” Lucy pulled herself up in the chair.

Helen reached to lift a long bang off Lucy's forehead and tuck it behind her ear. “Lucy, I'd like to ask you a favor.”

“Of course.”

“Before I die”—Helen held up her hand to Lucy's startled expression—“I want someone to know me, the real me. That's what this is all truly about. I want to be brave and meet that girl I knew long ago, before life and fear stifled her. May I start with you?” Helen rested her hands on the table. “I've shared this watch with you, we're on this trip, and there is so much in me that feels different and, while it scares me, I can't stop now. I need to see it through, find out who I am before . . . before I can't anymore. Would that be okay with you?”

“Yes,” Lucy whispered. She had no other words.

“And if you'd like to do the same, I'd be honored by such trust.”

That soft feeling crept over Lucy again. This time it wasn't
friendship or interview
; it felt like
friendship or therapy.
She sighed as she realized that sometimes they were perhaps the same. “I might like that.”