The Brontë Plot (18 page)

Helen took a few steps forward and pointed to the stone floor plaques. “That quote I mentioned earlier? ‘Come further up, come further in.' It's one of his.
That's
who I came to see.”

“C. S. Lewis? My father started the Narnia books with me. We didn't get past one or two.”

“He wrote others too. They were such a blessing to Charles in his last months. He was often too tired to talk so I sat in a chair and read.
The Four Loves
,
The Great Divorce
,
The Screwtape Letters
. Oh, how that one made me laugh and cringe. It ends something like ‘Your increasingly and ravenously affectionate uncle, Screwtape.' He's going to eat his nephew, a junior devil, who let one slip through his fingers.” Helen waved her fingers in the air. “It's diabolically delicious.”

The gleam in her eyes faded. “They aren't all funny, though. We read
A Grief Observed
last and I did not like that. It's excerpts from Lewis's diary after his wife died, and I think that was Charles's way of preparing me.”

Lucy's smile faded as well.

Helen continued with a slight shrug of a single shoulder. “He was right; it did prepare me. But it was
The Great Divorce
that meant the most. That's where I get the idea of going further up and further in. The quote is from
The Last Battle
, but it's the very journey in
The Great Divorce.
That's how I see Charles now, journeying further and further in, getting ever closer to God.”

“That's a nice image.”

Helen slowly walked back toward the Great West Door. “It's a part of my journey here too.”

“You're planning to journey further up?”

Helen blew a soft sigh. “Someday; but for now, I'm working on my choices. There are things I have to lay down and others I need to embrace. Right choices that are good—they hit your heart. We are wired to know what they are and they make us solid. We can stand on them. And that's what I want, Lucy. I want to stand firm. I want my family to know me, and I'm not sure they really do. I was so bold and daring and then somewhere along the way, I shrank. I became frightened, and I hid behind rules and manners and other things that weren't true.”

She pursed her lips as if the memory tasted sour. “If Ollie had chosen me, I would've followed him anywhere. And that would have been a disaster. Somehow I do know that. We weren't good and right for each other. But in stepping back from that ledge, I raced too fast and too far in the opposite direction.” She clasped Lucy's arm. “I'm so tired, Lucy. So tired of regrets.”

Lucy stopped walking. “Was my grandfather that bad?”

Helen slid her hand to Lucy's and held tight. “We were
young. He had ambition and I was rebelling—against everything. But we all grow up. I expect he did too.”

“Not everyone changes for the better as they age.”

Helen stared, possibly catching Lucy's deeper question. “Look back at that corner.” She waited until Lucy turned her head before continuing. “Do you see all those poets, writers, thinkers, and philosophers?”

“Yes.”

“Like Lenin, few of them got their names on those plaques or their faces carved in that stone without controversy. All real lives hold controversy, trials, mistakes, and regrets. What matters is what you do next.”

Lucy couldn't speak—unsure of what
next
might entail or what it might cost.

Helen looped her arm through Lucy's and patted her hand. “Don't hang on to the past so tightly that you taint the future. And that advice, I give from experience.” She glanced at her watch. “It's still too early for lunch and I ruined your schedule by skipping the War Rooms.”

Lucy pulled herself back to the present. “Not at all. Shall we knock out your shopping? The Vaults are closer to here than Portobello Road, where we'll be this afternoon. That is, if you'd still like to buy flatware sets for Sophie and Molly.”

“I would. Not that they'll appreciate them.” Helen stepped out the doors and into the sunshine. The sidewalk was packed with pedestrians, some locals and some tourists, taking photos—more of themselves than of the Abbey. “My granddaughters do that.”

Lucy didn't comment.

“Those girls are so different than I was at their age.” Helen tilted her head toward a group of teenagers not listening to their tour leader. “I take that back. Molly is perhaps quite like I was, which is why she has her father in fits.” She faced Lucy. “I wonder if they'll even understand why I'm giving them flatware. Is it too dated?”

“I don't think so. People want good silver in their home, still entertain, and Sid's clients are constantly buying it for children and grandchildren. There is a sense of enduring across generations, but please don't purchase anything because you think Sid expects a commission.”

“I'm buying these gifts as much for me as I am for them. Something to remember me by. It felt right when I thought it up, so let's stick with it.”

Dillon dropped them moments later at a nondescript entrance. Merely a wooden door and Lucite plaque noting
The London Silver Vaults
. Lucy had read that it was the world's largest collection of silver for sale. At the bottom of the stairs she quickly reviewed her notes—a listing of which “booths” sold what and expected valuations.

Within moments, a set caught Helen's eye. “This is so similar to mine. I hadn't thought of leaving one of the girls mine. What do you think?”

“It's a wonderful idea.”

“But then James's wife . . .”

Lucy quirked a half-smile and Helen raised a hand. “That was thoughtless of me. It's just I shouldn't give the girls something so significant and not think of him, simply because he's a man.”

“Of course not. And of course he's going to marry someday.”

Helen studied the room. “Lucy, I want to do this. I want to give a gift that has meaning and lasts, but suddenly this feels staid. Like the War Rooms, it's somewhere I've been or something I've done and it stifles now. I don't want that.”

“You want something new and different, and to put everything on trial.” Lucy paraphrased Virginia Woolf's words.

Helen's penciled eyebrows shot up as she caught the reference. “Exactly.”

“Then let's accomplish both.” Lucy felt something new unfurl inside her, similar to the anticipation that crept within her at the Abbey. She spun slowly, scanning her options. “Sid always says to pay attention to who someone is and not who she wants to be. So I say we're on track with the silver, but the early to mid-Victorian is not going to satisfy you. Not the real you.”

Helen's face lit with excitement. “Find me something fun. Something my girls will love.”

“Let's go searching.” Lucy led Helen down the central aisle. She took in all the gorgeous silver work—intricate scrolls on trays, latticework climbing candlesticks, flatware sets, some smooth and clean, others filigreed and infinitely detailed.

Lucy noticed Helen fall behind. After a few minutes, she found her again. “Remembering?”

“That's the true gift of old age, not the sleeping. It's the ability to drift away into memory at any time and in any place,” Helen lamented. “Some of this reminds me of Ollie's work. He was an engraver too, Lucy. Your father was right when he said Ollie was an artist.” She strummed her fingers together. “These hands can't even hold a pen without pain anymore.”

Lucy felt a shadow spread with her grandfather's name. She pushed it away. “Come see what I've found.”

Helen followed her to a far booth where a slim woman in her midsixties stood waiting. “She picked out some lovely sets.”

Helen laughed with delight.

“If you're sure . . .” Lucy paused, but at Helen's eager expression, she tapped on the glass-topped case below her selections. “Those are what you say you don't want. They range from very simple, early 1700s and a very nice value”—she dragged her finger across the glass—“to very ornate, the height of the opulent scrolls. But these are different.” She positioned the black velvet blotters directly in front of Helen and grasped the first fork. “These sets are both Danish and they're bold. Crazy bold when compared to what we've been talking about.”

“I love them.” Helen picked up a knife, the handle fashioned from a thin, long stem that folded under and rested on a flower's bloom. “It's alive and fresh, like it's growing out of the handle.”

“That's by Orla Vagn Mogensen, late 1950s, and terribly innovative. Still considered some of the finest Danish work.” The woman lifted a knife from the other blotter. “This set is by Georg Jensen. The master. His Blossom pattern from 1919.”

“I might like this even better.” Helen reached for the fork and let her fingers trail along a strong flower growing from the silver and bursting on top of the handle rather than dipping beneath—the gorgeous bud forever poised on the brink of opening. “There's nothing passive about these. They feel fresh, young, and beautiful.”

“Are you sure? I don't want you to regret these choices.”

“I'll never regret this.” Helen ran her finger over each and every flower.

“Okay then.” Lucy addressed the woman, who slid a piece of linen paper across the counter.

Helen gestured for Lucy to look first.

Lucy looked, bit her lip, and then slid the paper to Helen. “It's quite a sum, but they're priced well.”

The woman behind the counter accepted the compliment with a short nod.

“I agree. I'll take them both.” Helen pushed the paper back to the woman. “Lucy will handle the details. I'd like them shipped to her gallery.”

The woman laid several forms in front of Lucy along with a slim black fountain pen as Helen continued. “And while she's handling that, I need something for my daughter-in-law.” She scanned the glass display cases and the lit shelves. “I want something equally fresh and fun. What do you suggest?”

“It's not old, but recently I acquired a cut crystal vase with silver inlay that I think is magnificent.” The woman reached into a deep cabinet behind her and pulled out a heavy vase at least twenty inches high with silver laid into deep grooves like vines reaching up and around.

Lucy set down the pen. Light bounced off the cuts in the glass and the silver, refracting in a shooting of rainbow colors off each edge and glowing warm off the silver. “Sid tells me all the time that decorating should evoke a response. I trusted him, but never felt it. Then he got some vases by an English artist, MacMillan . . . And this.” She reached out and traced one silver vine with a delicate finger. “There is something
so personally meaningful here, isn't there? When you get it. When it speaks to you.”

“I think so. We're relational creatures and I don't think those connections are made exclusively with people.” Helen traced another vine. “Artists create things that point us to beauty, to truth, to God.”

“I agree, but I've only ever felt it with books. Not true . . . My drapery panels . . .” Lucy stilled. “Helen . . .”

“I agree. It's stunning.” Helen turned back to the woman. “This is perfect. In years to come, I want my daughter-in-law to remember me like this.”

A few minutes later, with purchases made, the pair headed to the elevator. Helen gripped Lucy's elbow and leaned hard. “I'm oddly spent. I came here to buy gifts, and I did, but there's a piece of me in those selections that I haven't spent time with in many years.”

Lucy smiled with understanding. “I think that was the most fun I've had in a really long time too. Those selections were you. All you. It was extraordinary to be a part of that.” Lucy felt herself expand.

Helen exhaled, a mixture of release and exhaustion. “Now let's go get a bite to eat and wander Portobello Road. It's time to be in the sunshine.”

Chapter 18

D
illon dropped them at a small courtyard opening onto Borough High Street.

“This is going to be special,” Lucy commented as they wove through the black picnic tables to the front door. “You mentioned this place. Have you been here before?”

“I have. We brought Charlie here before his senior year in high school, and while Charles was off somewhere, the two of us ate fish and chips and he enjoyed his first pint. At least, he told me it was his first. It was a wonderful afternoon.”

“Well, you're back and I pulled up lots of little fun tidbits for inside.” Lucy slid her phone out of her bag and as they ventured through the inn's front room, she noted the signs marking it as London's
last galleried coaching inn
. Another sign indicated that The Middle Bar had been a coffee room in Dickens's day.

Helen tapped the wall next to Dickens's life insurance policy framed near the fireplace and whispered, “Mine's with my lawyer.”

The hostess led the way up a slender turning staircase to
the restaurant above. It was snug and comfortable with plastered walls and rough-hewn beams, red and cream carpets, and wood furniture that didn't look any less cozy because the benches and chairs were simple and uncushioned. The room was only half-filled, but the air buzzed with excitement as if diners were munching on history and remembrance as well as fish and chips.

Soon full and picking at the remnants of a Neal's Yard cheese platter and George's ale-battered cod, Lucy watched the light playing off of the raindrops still sticking to the window mullions.

“Does your father have green eyes too?”

“He does. I remember them well.” She turned back to Helen. “What was Ollie like? You made him sound very exciting, then at the Abbey today, almost scary, like he was some Heathcliff who tormented you.”

“Not that at all. He was more Rochester than anyone.”

Lucy groaned. “That's hardly better.”