The Brontë Plot (27 page)

“Set it down here,” Bette said. “What do you think?”

“I like it, but you'd have to ask Lucy—she's the expert.”

“Speaking of Lucy, what do you—”

Lucy burst into the room.

Bette threw her a wink. “We were just talking about you” floated in the air alongside James's “How do you like what we've done?”

“It looks great.” Lucy addressed James and ignored Bette. “Let's scoot the bed a little farther and call this room done.”

James tossed Bette a crooked grin. “Told you.”

They pushed the bed into place and moved on to another room. Lucy directed the men where to move the furniture and Bette took notes on fabrics and ideas.

Bette then called it quits.

“Send me your notes, Bette, and I'll put them on a spreadsheet with approximate costs. I'll also send you pictures of fabrics that would work well and their numbers so you can order them with someone local. I would guess you've only got about $3,000 invested in all the changes.” Lucy positioned the last armchair in front of the window.

“Two thousand pounds? I was trying to find at least twenty thousand in the budget over the next couple years. This is
unbelievable!” Bette flopped into the armchair. “I can't thank you all enough, but now you need to go. It's past noon and you've hardly been out of this inn in two days. You too, James.”

“I'll go check on Grams.” James scanned the room. “It really does look wonderful. I like it, Bette.” He left the room without another word.

“And I'll go grab some food.” Lucy straightened her back. “Wanna come?”

“Dad manned the front desk so I could come up here, but I need to go help. Mum made a fantastic Italian wedding soup this morning that she passes off as northern English; I'll take some to Helen and James. You two go.”

“Dillon?”

He turned to Bette, who gave him a quick smile before he answered, “I'm game.”

“I'll tell James where you've gone when I deliver their lunch.”

“Don't.” Lucy stopped. “Only if he asks.”

Bette huffed. “Only if he asks.”

Chapter 25

L
ucy and Dillon had just stepped into the gravel drive when James called to them.

“Where are you going?” He skipped down the three steps and skidded to a stop beside them.

“We're heading to lunch and the Brontë Parsonage. Bette said she was taking Helen soup. Aren't you eating with her?”

“She kicked me out—again. She says I need to see the town before we go.” James looked between them. “Can I join you?”

Lucy turned to the drive, but Dillon backed away. “Since you won't be alone now, do you mind if I head back in? I told Bette I'd paint some of that furniture this afternoon and the Brontës aren't my thing.”

Lucy gave him a pointed look, which he met with a smirk before he sauntered away.

“Did I interrupt something?”

The question sounded innocent, but Lucy enjoyed the hint, the slight uplift of James's curiosity at the end. “The Brontës aren't his thing, but Bette sure is. You helped a brother out.”

“So that's how it is.” James fell into step beside her. “I wondered.”

“From the moment she came out to welcome the car.” Lucy walked down the lane. “You'd really like those two. They are who they are—kind and straightforward.”

“I do like those two.”

“You did get a good introduction this morning.” Lucy threw him a glance. “Sorry to drag you into that. You could've said no.”

“Why would I? It was fun. Besides, I'm quite good at moving furniture.”

His light tone dropped heavy as a stone. Lucy saw the leather armchair and empty shelves in front of her. “Speaking of that, I have—”

“Don't.” James didn't turn to her. “We'll have to discuss it sometime, but I'm not interested in figuring out how I'm going to get my stuff back right now.”

They crossed onto the slate sidewalk and headed down the hill into town. “Where are we going?” he asked.

“I'll tell you, but you can't laugh.”

James held his palms out with feigned innocence.

“I'm headed to the Wuthering Heights Inn for lunch. Bette says there are better spots, but . . .”

“Sorry . . .” James chuckled. “But I agree; it's the only place to go.”

The conversation died once again. Considering the time he'd spent with Helen and her new loquacious nature, Lucy was certain every morsel of their trip had been shared, dissected,
and thoroughly masticated. She walked on, wondering how they'd survive lunch and why he had come at all. The silence was deafening.

“You're going to have to speak, you know.” Lucy blurted.

“Why me?”

“Because you're the one who's been with Helen for the past day and there are things you know now and to not say anything is just cruel.” She stopped. “You aren't that.” She focused on the sidewalk, unable to meet his eyes.

He touched her arm. “I think the biggest takeaway from the past twenty-four hours is that we aren't related.”

Lucy's head bounced up. “I know, right?”

“Right.” James walked on. “Everything else, honestly, is overwhelming—not the facts, the sheer quantity. No wonder the woman fainted. Has she drawn breath since you two landed in London?”

“She's very sick, James. She told you that too, didn't she?”

James studied the shop signs, as if refusing to look at Lucy or directly face her question. “She did, and that was my other takeaway.”

“I'm sorry.”

“Me too.”

James pulled the door open. A puff of warm air, full of grains, hops, yeast, and fish, welcomed them. “Perfect.” He sighed.

Lucy inhaled in agreement. There was something so comforting, so elemental, about the atmosphere. The Inn was crowded with patrons and decorated with beer placards and awards lining the walls. Lucy read a few food reviews pinned
among them. “Bette must have some serious standards. These reviews are great. The fish and chips seem to be their crowning glory.”

“Isn't it every pub's crowning glory?”

“You're stereotyping,” Lucy joked. “Some favor bangers and mash.”

“You order that then and I'll get the fish and chips.”

In the end, they both ordered the fish and chips. There was no talk of sharing and the absence felt like a chasm between them. And in that empty space all their words seemed to fall—for there was nothing to say. Lucy thought to ask a question. She decided against it. She opened her mouth to make a comment, then closed it when she realized how silly it would sound. She soon quit trying to bridge it at all.

Their food arrived and still they sat. Lucy finally couldn't stand it and tipped her half-pint of ale toward James. “Your grandmother told me they call these ‘bedwetters.' I have no idea if that's true, but it's a great name.”

James swirled his glass. “You want to know what I don't get?”

“Please,” Lucy exclaimed then checked herself.

“She's acting like this ‘Summer of Love' was the defining moment of her life. It was a summer, big deal. Relationships end. You don't hang on for sixty-five years.”

Lucy wanted to recant her “please,” deciding that she would rather not know what James was thinking after all. She closed her eyes to imagine if James could be right. Could a feeling, unrequited, last for so long?

Like a movie reel, scenes played before her and she saw James the first day they met and a flash of every moment after.
She saw the gleam in Dillon's eyes as Bette raced to greet their car. That spark was real and she doubted time diminished it.

She opened her eyes. “I think one could. Even if the relationship ends, some are that defining. Don't you believe in soul mates? Love at first sight?”

She watched James ponder the question over one fry, two fries . . .

“One person you're destined to meet and love? No.”

Lucy leaned back in her chair and let her fantasies go. Cathy slipped away from the window. Heathcliff called in vain. Jane stepped away from the tree and Rochester paid her passage to Ireland, perhaps he even married Blanche Ingram. Dillon and Bette drifted apart as he returned to London, deciding that she was
one of
and not
the one
, as Bette struggled alone at the inn. And James still walked away from the gallery that last evening, and even though he was right here, right now, he never returned.

James continued, “I grew up seven miles from my grandparents' house, Lucy. I was over there after school and stayed with them on weekends. Grams loved Gramps as much as he loved her. So, while I get revisiting one's youth, especially now, I'm not going to get too undone over it and I'm not going to believe that your grandfather was her one true love.” James dunked his fish in the tartar sauce with such force it broke apart.

He dug out the pieces with his fork. “I don't think she was trying to hurt you. But negating the past sixty-five years of her life? And our entire family with it?” His eyes trailed over her shoulder and into the past. “It's selfish.”

“She's changing, James. I think it's surprising her as much as it is you. She isn't trying to be selfish, just the opposite; she's trying to let you in.”

“People don't change, remember?” James poked his fork at her.

“I wish you'd stop saying that. It's not true.” Lucy's conviction startled her. She quickly searched for something, anything, to back her claim. “Look at the stories. Jane and Edward? Huge change for both of them. Catherine and Henry from
Northanger Abbey
? Both grew up. Admittedly she had more growing to do. Heathcliff and Cathy? Okay, bad example. That one kinda makes your point. But John Thornton and Margaret Hale? Huge divisions and huge changes in understanding . . . Writers wouldn't write about change and true love unless they were real, and if they did, we wouldn't read the stories because we'd know they were writing lies.”

She heard a soft chuckle. “What?”

“There you go, one full run-on sentence, trying to vindicate my grandmother's choices with fiction.”

“I don't have any real-world examples and you're making me nervous.”

James's eyes softened at her admission. “Only because I'm right. To twist a line from another book—all your examples are from stories written by women. Of course they make sense to you.”

“You're completely ruining Jane Austen and deliberately missing my point!”

James threw out the same self-satisfied grin Helen had recently used.

“You are so like her,” she spat out. His eyes immediately clouded and she regretted her words.

“I know,” he whispered back. “That's why I don't like being told she should've taken another road.”

“Then you haven't been listening, because I know she didn't say that. Never once has she said that she and Ollie were any good together or that she wished it had turned out differently. Quite honestly, he sounds dreadful. The only thing she says is that when she walked away from him, she lost some vital, alive part of her personality that she's withheld from you all.”

James's eyes widened.

“What now?”

“I hadn't thought about that.” He chuckled without a trace of humor. “She rewrote your family history too, didn't she?”

“That's beneath you.”

James reached across the table and grabbed Lucy's hand. “I didn't mean it like that. I promise you. It was thoughtless. I only meant that I feel hurt about my grandfather, my family—almost betrayed—and you must feel the same. That's all. I'm so sorry.”

“Let's get our check and go.”

James reached for the bill and paid. She avoided any eye contact with him and simply got up and left the restaurant.

He was beside her within half a block. “Sincerely, Lucy, I didn't mean it like that.”

“Please, let's not talk about it anymore . . .” She stopped. “No. I'll say one thing. Every story I told you about my family, while I may have embellished here and there, they were true as far as I knew them. Now I know they were probably all lies. Knowing my dad, I figured some might have been, but now
it's so much worse. There's a whole new generation of bad in my family tree. Okay? And that was my takeaway—that maybe there are things that just
are
and you can't change them.”

“That makes no sense,” James countered. “You just told me people
can
change. You even cited literature and now you're switching sides?”

“Don't be such a lawyer, James.”

“Witty retort.” He twisted, facing back down the hill. “Did you know, on the flight over, I read that the Parsonage was considered healthy because it was at the top of the street and all the sewage drained downward?” He glanced to Lucy, who refused to engage. “But considering how young they all died, I'm thinking ‘healthy' is a relative term.”

Lucy cracked a smile and leapt up the parsonage steps. “I know what you're doing and I thank you for that, but . . .” She pressed her lips together as if stopping herself from qualifying her statement. Then she met his eyes. “Do you want to come in? Or do we part ways now?”

James, two steps below, regarded her at eye-level and from only a few inches away. “I feel like we should talk.”

Lucy backed up the last step and pointed to the door. “I can't . . . I am going to walk in this door and visit the place that produced some of my favorite books in the whole world and you aren't going to ruin it. You in or not?”

“I'm all in.”

Lucy tugged open the white wooden door to the Brontë Parsonage Museum. A large Lucite sign within the door described the family and their lives and times in the house from 1820 to 1861. Lucy read every word twice before an older
woman welcomed them and offered a tour of the house. Lucy could hear footsteps above and all around.