The Brontë Plot (20 page)

“Is your father alive? The private investigator I hired found only you.”

“He passed away in '04.” He traced the initials with his finger. “He would have loved to have seen this. He never gave up hope that it would find its way back to us . . . I'll still add his initials.”

As Edward sat gaping at the watch, Lucy noticed that Clara watched Helen.

Clara took a sip of tea, then spoke. “How did you find it? And your letter said you hired a private investigator?”

Fair questions,
Lucy thought. She, too, turned to Helen, wondering what she'd say. How much truth was enough truth?

“I've thought long and hard about how to answer . . . I've had the watch for sixty-five years and, yes, I knew from the first day that it didn't belong to the person from whom I acquired it.” She dropped her eyes to her lap, took a deep breath, and met their gaze again.

The whole truth.

“I was in love with a young man who sold stolen property in the States.” Helen gazed at Lucy. “And when we parted ways, I took that from him. Part talisman, part revenge, and wholly wrong, but I never studied it so I didn't know about the name and the initials inside. I simply hid it away.”

She rubbed her fingers together as if kneading out the story. “Then recently I was reminded of it and that's when I noticed the markings. It became very important to me to end the story and return it, if I could.” She addressed Clara. “I'm only sorry it's taken so long.”

“All this time.” Edward's face reddened. “You knew it was stolen? And you kept it?”

“I didn't realize I could find the proper owners. It wasn't like that . . .” Helen pressed her lips together.

“Then how was it?” Edward's voice pitched higher. “This was a piece of our family. Our history. My father—” His voice cut out as if he couldn't bring himself to finish the sentence.

“I sincerely apologize and I have no real excuse to give.” Helen sat with her hands in her lap and her face blank—as if willing to accept anything that came next.

“You said you loved the man who stole it. Was he your husband? Did he steal it?”

Edward's anger surprised Lucy. She glanced at Helen.

“Never.” Helen's eyes darkened to steel. “This was before I met my husband. He didn't know it existed at all.”

Edward peeked at his wife; she took up the questioning. “What made you come here?”

Helen's visible anger faded and a new emotion flitted through her eyes, gone before Lucy could identify it. “Some things you must do in person, and my time to see those through is . . . ending.”

Edward opened his mouth but caught a gesture from his wife before speaking. Watching, Lucy felt as if an entire conversation passed between the couple without a single word spoken. Hurt, anger, acceptance, forgiveness, and then joy flashed between them—one leading, one questioning, one answering, and one accepting. It was impossible to tell who led the volley, but Lucy could discern when the last emotion settled. Clara blinked and nodded so slightly, so minutely, that Lucy wondered if only she had caught it.

But Edward had caught it as well. He gave his wife a brief and intimate smile before turning to Helen. “Forgive me. It's
home now and I truly do thank you for the efforts you took to find us.” His words came out stiff and clipped, but Lucy felt as if he wanted them to be sincere—as if he knew what was right and, by saying it, he could make it so.

He closed the watch between his palms. “It's a good idea, I think. I'll add my father's initials and mine. Daniel's too, soon.” Edward's voice trailed off.

Clara picked up the thread. “I sense this is about more than the watch, but we thank you for that part. Even I could've told you what it looked like.” She laughed.

“It was the perfect reason for a little trip.” Helen stood as Edward sat rubbing his finger over the watch's delicate casing.

“We should go now. Thank you for your kindness and the lovely tea, Clara. I wish you both the very best.”

Lucy stood as well and Clara led them to the door.

They'd covered only a few steps to the sidewalk before Helen stopped and clutched the wrought-iron railing. Lucy grabbed at her arm, unable to fully see her face in the dim light until she stood inches from her. “Helen?”

Helen released a deep sigh that ended in a cough, a laugh, and a hiccup simultaneously. “Oh . . . That took much too long, Lucy. Much too long. And there was a moment there. Oh . . . His father, Lucy, there's no making that right. I had a piece of their history, their story, this whole time. And poor Charles. I couldn't bear that . . . Clara got me out of that, don't you think? I could've hugged her right then. Ahh . . . I'm so glad she was there.” She grabbed for Lucy's wrist.

“Bless that woman! Did you see his face? Beet red? And his hair? It stood up a little, like a cat. How did he do that?” Helen
started to laugh, frantic and watery, then hiccupped again. She let go of the fence, but not Lucy's wrist, and started to walk. “It's over. It's all finally over.”

At the street corner, they both stopped.

“Shall I call Dillon?”

“I suppose so . . .” Helen stepped forward. “Look, Lucy, Sally Clarke's. It's still here.”

“What is it?”

“A sheer delight. Don't bother with Dillon yet.” She pulled at Lucy's hand. “Come on. I feel like celebrating.”

Chapter 19

L
ucy followed Helen into the small provisions shop bursting with beautiful jars of culinary delights, baked goods, cheeses, and pastas. There were biscuits, tins filled with candies, and a small display of fresh vegetables and fruits in baskets. She kept glancing at Helen, not quite sure what to think of her new giddiness. She was touching every package and every piece of fruit as if seeing things, seeing color, for the first time.

“There's a restaurant attached. Will you see if we can get a table?”

“I'll be right back.” Lucy ducked back out of the shop to the restaurant next door.

A young woman, a few years younger than herself, was making notes on paper while dragging her finger across a computer track pad. Her face was drawn tight, her eyes upset rather than annoyed.

Lucy watched her as she crossed the small waiting area. “We have a reservation for Carmichael at six, but we're a few minutes early and we'd like to be seated now if possible.”

The woman's face fell and she looked back to her screen, to her notebook, and to her screen again. “I don't have any reservations for Carmichael this evening.” She slid her finger across the track pad once, then again.

“I confirmed this reservation. Twice. And I am not going to tell my eighty-five-year-old grandmother you lost it.” Lucy flattened out her accent, making herself even more American and louder. “Do you know how far she's traveled? Just give us whatever you have available. I requested a window table.”

“I don't have any notes down and we don't have—”

“Find something. Now.”

The young woman glared at her, then relented in the next beat. “Please excuse me.”

She hurried away and talked to a server who pointed to a center table. She came back and said, “We can seat you now but not at the window. It's the best I can offer.”

“That'll do.” Lucy smiled. “You made me nervous for a minute. I did not want to tell her that her favorite restaurant wasn't going to happen tonight after all.”

“No, of course not.” The woman gripped the edge of the hostess stand before erasing something in her notes.

Within minutes, Lucy led Helen into the candlelit dining room where the hostess awaited them at the small central table.

Lucy ran her hand across the linen tablecloth. “She forgot our menus.”

“If it's like it used to be, there are no menus. It's a set three-course meal.” Helen leaned forward. “I feel good, Lucy. I hadn't realized how deep that reached, how important that was to me.”

Lucy straightened her napkin in her lap. “James called
me questioning our trip, you told Charlie it couldn't wait until summer, you've dropped comments here and there, and you just told Clara that your time is ending.”

“Is there a question there?”

“There's a story. James told me you had—
have
—time.” Lucy felt the currents gaining strength. She also felt the curtain draped in front of her, velvet, thick and dark, providing the tension and movement, just like it did in every good story.

But suddenly she wanted a Burchell—an honest and humble young man—to step forward and, as in
The Vicar of Wakefield
, announce he was Sir William Thornhill and he possessed the authority and the desire to set all to rights. No secrets, no shadows, no curtain . . . No Brontë wife in the attic. Clear and beautiful transparency.

Helen stared straight into Lucy's eyes. No blinking. “Getting old is not for the faint of heart, Lucy. It's a trial unlike any I've known, to be constantly betrayed by my body. That's what's happening to me. I'm not strong enough for more treatment. So, yes, my time is ending and no one is fully aware of that yet.”

“Why haven't you told your son?”

“I needed to see this through, and the moment Charlie knows, I'll be put on lockdown and may never make another decision for myself again.”

“That's a little dramatic.” Lucy threw Helen's words back at her.

“Only slightly.”

“Then time matters, Helen. We should go home now. You need to be with your family.”

“Yes, time matters to me very much. I've used it exactly the way I wanted to, and if it costs me in the end, it will be worth it.” Helen's jaw flexed and Lucy noted her remarkable eyes cooling in color. #821
Blue Ice
would best describe them now. “I won't regret this, ever. I finally feel like I can be present and real and me, and even if it's only for a little while, I need that. My family needs that.”

“I don't have the power to drag you home, do I?”

“Not really,” Helen agreed.

“Excellent. Now I'm an accomplice. Edward was so upset that you'd withheld a watch from them—and that's a watch! Your family is going to be hurt far worse. And when James finds out that I know . . . He already hates me.”

“He doesn't hate you.”

“Helen, I hate me right now.”

Helen shifted her gaze. “I should've been honest with you about how bad my cancer is.”

“What will you do?”

“I'll go home and be honest with Charlie—honest about so many things, which is why this needed to come first.” Helen scanned the restaurant. “Part of me is sad you could get us in here.”

“Why?”

“You used to have to make reservations months in advance. To get one so easily must mean that it's gone downhill.”

Lucy didn't reply.

“Let's order champagne. Don't you think that's fitting?”

“No. It doesn't feel fitting at all.”

“I feel better than I have in years. Please, Lucy, celebrate
with me.” Helen sat back. “And I think we should cut a day from Haworth and one from London and visit the Lake District. It won't add any time to the trip.”

Lucy shook her head. “Forget it. Please. Let's just get back to Chicago.”

Helen reached across the table. “A few days now won't matter. This is part of it too, Lucy. I'm not done yet. I'm here and I'm seeing this through. We've done the hard part; now I want to have a little fun. Stay at an inn and sit by a fire. I won't come this way again, please.”

“You didn't even want to—”

“Lucy, Haworth and the Lake District.”

Lucy knew a command when she heard one and didn't protest. Jane Eyre's refusal to marry St. John floated before her—the double-edged moment, the acquiescence with stipulations. Two paths. One choice.
I am ready to go to India, if I may go free.

Could she say the same? Lucy tried. “We stay two days in Haworth, one in the Lake District, then straight home. No coming back here. Cutting three days off in total is my final offer.”

“Very well.”

“I'll make the arrangements,” Lucy conceded.

“Now that everything is settled, it's time we ordered that champagne.”

Helen was right: once the champagne was ordered, there were no decisions left. A beautiful arugula and pear salad arrived, followed by a Dover sole and light tart for dessert. And although every bite was delicate and delicious, Lucy felt herself tasting little and flitting in and out of the conversation.

Helen talked of blues clubs, staying out all night drinking
French 75s, watching sunrises, and who knows what else . . . But she seemed younger, lighter, and more alive. She wrinkled her nose and her eyes widened and softened. “He used to get so mad and tell me to loosen up. If he only knew the fun I'd had. I wanted him to get into his own scrapes, make his own bad decisions, and wallow around youth. But he was right, I reined him in. I should've told him, ‘run mad as often as you choose; but do not faint,' and left it at that.”

“Who? Charlie?” A smile finally reached Lucy's eyes as she returned to Helen's story. “I remember that line. Jane Austen is a font of good advice.”

“And yet, I followed another's. ‘I set to right everything. Myself and him by setting his task from hour to hour, standing by him always and helping, controlling him really, from moment to moment.' ”

“What's that from?”

“I'm not surprised you don't recognize it. It's very random, but it struck me and I read it over and over until I memorized it. Do you know what effort that takes at my age?”

Helen nodded encouragement. “Come now.” One corner of her mouth tilted up. “You can give me one guess.”

“I see where your grandson gets it.” Lucy relented and waggled a finger at Helen's smile. “James's lips curve up that same way when he feels superior.”