A Katherine Reay Collection

by Katherine Reay

“What happened?”

  “She just fell. The doctor says she’s suffering from exhaustion and severe dehydration.”

  “Are you in London?” James asked with a slight bang and a groan. “Darn desk drawer.”

  “We arrived in Haworth last night.”

  “What hospital is she at?”

  Lucy closed her eyes. “She isn’t in one.”

  “What?”

  “I asked, but the doctor said she was fine. I asked again and he said the same thing. He even said a hospital wouldn’t be good after her cold, that her immune system might still be compromised.”

  “Nevertheless, if she needs—”

  “She agrees with the doctor. She won’t go.”

  “She doesn’t get a choice,” James growled.

  Lucy pulled her phone from her ear, as if it had relayed something wrong, as if James could not have said that—and in that tone.

  “I’m the one without a choice, James. She won’t go and the doctor agrees with her. I agree with you, but that doesn’t count. She’s perfectly lucid.” Lucy heard James suck in air as if he was about to start yelling.

  She spoke before he could. “He hooked her up to an IV and he’s just left after switching her to a second bag. He’ll be back in a couple hours and promises to come by again when his office hours end.”

  “She’s eighty-five. He can’t give her a glass of water and think that’s enough.”

  “James.” Lucy pressed her lips tight, refusing to argue or plead.

  “What?” His voice calmed.

  “I can’t force her to do anything. I’m not family.” Lucy pulled a card from her bag’s side pocket. “I’m going to text you his number. He told me to pass it along so that your dad or her doctor, or anyone, can call him. I didn’t want to text it to you without talking to you first.”

  “I appreciate that. I’ll pass it along to my dad.” James paused. “Lucy?”

  “Yes?”

  “Take care of her.”

  “Always.” Lucy let the word, and all the meaning it once carried, linger. James hung up. She texted the doctor’s number then slid the phone into her bag and wandered toward the stairs again.

  “It’s only been ten minutes since you checked.” Bette’s soft voice surprised her.

  “I didn’t see you there.”

  “The wind has died down. Go for a walk. I’ll keep an eye on her.” Bette walked around the desk and stood near her.

  “You’re so busy.”

  “I’m not too busy to dash up there for a few minutes.” Bette tilted her head to the front door. “Go.”

  Lucy accepted the offer. She needed out. She grabbed her coat and strode toward Main Street, thinking she’d be eager to see the town, explore the shops, and relish all things Brontë. But as she approached the first door with the tempting sign, Thornfield Luncheon Special, she found herself racing on. Helen had brought her to Haworth and was such a fundamental part of the experience that to see, smell, or touch anything now felt like a betrayal. The discomfort of the cobblestones and gravel under her feet felt fitting as she pushed to the edge of town.

  By the time Lucy found Main Street again, her feet were sore and numb. The sky had turned dark gray and her stomach made gurgling noises, audible to passersby. She was late and anxious.

  She found Bette descending the stairs. “Perfect timing. She and Mum had a lovely time over a bowl of soup and now she’s wide awake.”

  Lucy started up the stairs. “Thank you, Bette, and thank your mom too.” She knocked on Helen’s door and entered without waiting for a reply. Helen sat up in bed with a pale-pink satin bed jacket draped over her shoulders. Her cheeks matched the jacket’s soft tone. Lucy smiled. “You look lovely.”

  “You sound relieved.”

  “I am.” She walked over to the bed and squeezed Helen’s hand. “I was really worried. You were so pale. I pushed you too hard.”

  “Don’t be silly. This has nothing to do with you. I think I had more invested in returning that watch than I thought. All systems seem to be letting go.” Helen smiled and added, “Resting. All systems need rest. Nothing more.”

  She handed Lucy The Vicar of Wakefield. “Here, you take over reading now.”

  “Where are you?”

  “The Primroses have just been thrown in jail.”

  “How?”

  “I skipped some. There was a lot of foolishness. I needed to cut to the chase.”

  “You came to the right place. You’re closing in on the glorious reveal.” Lucy plopped into the chair and opened it to her bookmark. “I forgot I left this in here.” She pulled out the laminated index card and flicked it in her hand. “I guess you saw this too.”

  “I used to make up those poems all the time for Charlie and my grandkids. ‘Roses are red, Violets are blue, Eat your green beans, or no cake for you.’ ”

  “Then that’s where he gets it. James wrote this one.”

  “Oh . . . I’m sorry I read it.” Helen burst out a quick laugh. “I expected more elegance, intelligence . . . Something more from him for a love note.”

  “No criticizing. That’s exactly why I like it.” Lucy slid the card into the front of the book. “It was silly to bring it, though . . . On to our happy ending.”

  Lucy trained her eyes on the book as if the physical action could keep her emotionally anchored to the hope of a glorious reveal and a satisfying ending.

  Chapter 22

  Lucy spent the night tossing and turning and regretting her poor reading choice. She had thought it a delectable idea to read Dracula within her heavily curtained bed, the wind whistling in the windows. But hours later as she jumped at every creak and clink, and was sure she caught a whiff of death and decay seeping under her door, she knew she’d been wrong. Six times she softly padded to Helen’s room, creeping across the floorboards, to listen for her soft snores. And when she did fall asleep, she only found herself in a worse state—running frantically and banging on locked doors, unable to escape, unable to breathe, and shrinking from the sun.

  The next morning, Lucy marched into Helen’s room with Wives and Daughters pulled up on her tablet and started to read.

  “No hello?” Helen laughed. “And I thought we agreed on The Tenant of Wildfell Hall next.”

  “I can’t. I went for that walk yesterday afternoon, then last night . . .” Lucy moaned and slouched into the armchair. “I know we’re here and this is Brontë country, but Stoker got involved and I can’t deal with any wives in attics, dark secrets, rotten, violent husbands, or window banging. Gaskell was a friend of Charlotte’s, wrote her biography, so I figure that’s close enough, and there’s nothing creepy in Gaskell. Everything happens right in the open—arguments, yearnings, class warfare, misunderstandings—all in daytime and with the appropriate amount of angst and romance.”

  “I think you need to get outside. Get some fresh air today.”

  “I think I need to exorcise Dracula, and he’s always indoors.” She nodded to the cup of broth Helen was sipping. “As soon as you finish that and I finish a couple chapters, I’ll let you rest and go wandering. You can even read The Tenent of Wildfell Hall on your own.”

  Helen narrowed her eyes. “Have you had breakfast yet?”

  “A bite.”

  “Go get some more or go for a walk. It’s gorgeous out that window and you need to have some fun today. I’m sorry my frailty has gotten in our way.”

  “Don’t say that.” Lucy stood and handed Helen the tablet. “But I will take your advice and go. It wasn’t a good night. I could use the food . . . and a walk.”

  As Lucy headed to the stairs, a thump stopped her. She peeked in the cracked doorway to the bedroom next to Helen’s.

  Bette sat on the floor. Perfectly still.

  “What are you doing?” Lucy pushed the door open.

  Bette scrambled to stand. “The sheet slipped from my hand and kerplop.”

  “Do you want some help?”

  “I can’t have a guest help
change the sheets.” Bette pulled the sheet tight and groaned with the effort to secure it on the underside of the mattress.

  “Yes, you can.” Lucy stepped into the room.

  Bette groaned again. “We replaced all the mattresses last month and they’re thicker now. The bottom sheets don’t fit.”

  “They’re super comfy.”

  “I’m glad, but they’re impossible to make.” Bette gripped the sheet again. “You wouldn’t believe the cost of fine linens and I refuse to buy anything less. This old house, it deserves good linens.” She dropped her voice and started mumbling to herself. “Of all the things I need to do . . .”

  Lucy couldn’t hear the rest as she looked around the room. She noted the quality fabrics, the heavy drapes on the four-poster bed, the nineteenth-century dresser and side table. Bette was right. Everything here was of the first quality. “What else do you need to do?”

  Bette dropped to the floor again. Lucy caught the moment when Bette decided to trust her; it was accompanied by a huff and sagging shoulders. “The whole place needs renovation. Tourism has been slow for a few years—your economy, our economy, and three cool summers in a row.”

  She rubbed her hand over her eyes. “Last year we had 92 percent occupancy of the year before and that was 89 percent of the previous year. I’m trying to take some of the management off Mum’s and Dad’s shoulders and they haven’t updated these rooms since Thatcher.” Bette gripped the edge of the fitted sheet again and pulled. “That alone is probably responsible for a 5 percent drop.”

  Lucy laid a hand on her shoulder. “You’re going to rip it. Hang on a second.” She walked to the opposite corner and released the sheet. “Let’s set the corners at the same time; sometimes that helps.”

  Lucy held up her corner. Bette did the same. Simultaneously they fitted them under the mattress.

  “How’d you know to do that?”

  “Like you said, fine linens are a must.” Lucy spread the sheet smooth. “The interior decorator I work for . . . Sometimes we actually make the beds for clients so that their first night in their newly decorated room is perfect. Sid can’t abide a poorly made bed.” Lucy joined Bette on the antique carpet and surveyed the room again. “What do you want to do in here?”

  “What don’t I want to do? New curtains, new coverings. It needs to be fresher, lighter. Doesn’t it feel stuffy? Oppressive?”

  “I wouldn’t say that.” Lucy stood and walked around. She ran her hand across the dresser. “It’s tempting to want to pitch it all, but . . .” She patted the armchair, noting it was firm and well filled. She then circled the huge bed. “Envision this. What if you remove the heavy drapery on the bed? I kind of agree the fabrics are old and the first thing I think of are allergens, but that’s just me. And then what about moving the bed to this wall?”

  Lucy spread her arm across a long, unbroken wall on the door side of the room, across from the double window. “Facing the fireplace is nice, but over here, guests will not only catch all the light from that huge window in the afternoon, most likely when they’re seeing it for the first time after check-in, but you also create a better sitting area in front of the fire.”

  She pulled the legs of the armchair toward the fireplace. “What do you think of this here? And do you have a stool someplace? It can serve as a side table with a tray atop or second seating without. And if you have a spare chair, this room can handle it.”

  “There’s tons of spare furniture in a few of the outbuildings.”

  “If you have a wood straight-back chair, I’d paint it this color green.” She turned to the armchair. “See the thread woven on the bias? It’s a gorgeous color. Pick it up in the chair and add a few throw pillows.”

  “I never noticed that green.”

  “If you put that on pillows, in something light—like a twill or a linen—it will wake up the color palette and lighten the ascetic. So in here? Mini face-lift done with three to five pillows, a chair you already own, and a stool.”

  Bette’s jaw hung open.

  “Bette?”

  She furrowed her brow. “Horrible idea?”

  Bette scampered atop the bed. “It’s brilliant. Here. Help me?”

  “What are you doing?”

  “Pulling down the curtains.”

  Lucy giggled. “I didn’t mean now.”

  “I do. This has defeated me, but no more. We’ve got six empty rooms today and if I’m going to make them up, I’m going to do it right.” She stopped and stared down at Lucy. “Get up here, you’re taller.”

  Lucy pulled off her shoes, climbed up on the bed, and bounced slightly. “This is so tempting.”

  “You will not break this bed.” Bette pointed at her, but softened the command with a smirk.

  Lucy reached up to push the curtain rod. “It’d be easier to hold the bars off their rests and slide the rings, but I’m not strong enough.”

  Bette’s arms dropped. “Then how are we ever going to move it too?”

  “We need help.” Lucy laughed. “Wait here. I’ll go rustle up Dillon.”

  Three sets of bed curtains, five armchairs, two desks, a bowfront dresser, and two rugs later, Dillon begged for a break. Lucy and Bette, also exhausted, agreed—especially as Bette discovered she was late for lunch preparations.

  “You go. We’ll clean all this up.” Dillon gently pushed her from the room.

  Lucy gathered an armful of the bed curtains and headed to a back storage room where they’d been stacking them. Upon her return, Dillon had vacuumed the room, straightened everything, and was backing out.

  “You’re amazing, you know that? I don’t know a guy in a million who would do what you did today.” She leaned against the doorjamb. Her memory drifted to James. Two guys in a million.

  “It was fun.” Dillon wrapped the cord around the vacuum’s holding hooks. “And she needs the help . . . She’s sorta like sunshine, isn’t she?”

  “That’s just what I was thinking,” Lucy teased.

  “Go on with you.” Dillon shoved against her shoulder. “I’m serious.”

  Lucy was about to push Dillon back when his words stopped her. “I know you are. And yes, she’s like sunshine.”

  Bette’s mother and another woman were clearing the tables and preparing the dining room for tea as Lucy finished her lunch. Dillon had already left to go dig more furniture out of an outbuilding for Bette.

  “Do you want me out of here?” Lucy called across the room.

  Bette’s mother, a short woman with blonde hair, came over. Lucy imagined Bette looking much the same in twenty years—a little plumper, a touch of gray, but still gentle and still like sunshine.

  “You’re fine.” She tucked the chair across from Lucy farther beneath the table. “Bette took me up to the rooms you and Dillon helped her with.”

  Lucy laid down her fork. “I hope you don’t mind. Do you like the changes?”

  “I like them very much. It’s hard to see what needs changing when you’ve lived with them one way for so long. I don’t even see the rooms anymore.”

  “I think that’s true. As long as you’re happy . . .”

  “I am and Bette’s thrilled. I’m so pleased to have her excited about this place. We’re not getting any younger and it’s time she felt it was hers.” Bette’s mom touched the rim of Lucy’s plate. “You enjoy the rest of your lunch and I’ll finish clearing the buffet. Those tomatoes are from last year’s garden. Bette and I canned all last fall and Robert grills them up well, I think.”

  “They’re amazing. Thank you.” Lucy returned her attention to her plate.

  “Hey.”

  Lucy choked on the tomato, squirting seeds onto her plate.

  James stood above her.

  “Whoa . . . Not a good idea.” He reached for her then dropped his arm.

  “Hot,” she gasped, swallowing the tomato whole. She jumped up, pressing her napkin against her mouth.

  James held her gaze, his hair dipping over one eye, five o’clock s
hadow darkening his chin, and the sun hitting his eyes at just the right angle to highlight the fine lines at their corners.

  Lucy took in his tired expression, his green waxed coat, blue oxford shirt tucked into jeans, and decided that, yes, he was still cute. Every gothic hero of old came to mind. Valancourt, Tilney, and Markham—those were James’s speed. Heathcliff? She couldn’t make a demon out of James or a man out of Heathcliff. Rochester? Despite Helen’s assertion, he didn’t work any better. Thornton. Hamley. That’s it. Hamley! Her eyes widened farther with the realization that she’d perhaps spent too much time with Gaskell’s Wives and Daughters already.

  She lowered the napkin. “What are you doing here?”

  “Little work . . .” He shrugged and she pinned him with a glare. “I wanted to come. I didn’t think . . . I didn’t feel you should handle this alone.”

  “You came for me?” Lucy heard the wonder in her voice and tried to cover it by clearing her throat. “I mean, Helen will be thrilled.”

  James twisted. “Where is she?”

  “In her room. Asleep.” She stumbled back against her chair. “Come on. I’ll take you up.”

  As they passed by the front desk, Lucy noted Bette’s absence. “Did you check in?”

  “Yes. Bette? She told me where to find you.”

  As they walked up the stairs, Lucy couldn’t help peeking James’s way. To have him so close, but in many ways so far away, was an exquisite torture. She wanted to tell him about the past few days, all she’d done, all she’d felt, and how she wanted to be different and new, “break the mold” as Helen had done.

  She knocked on Helen’s door and, when no answer came, pushed it open to let James enter first.

  “Not locked?” he whispered.

  “I asked her not to so I can check on her.”

  James leaned around the door. He pulled back. “She’s asleep.”

  “You can wake her.” Lucy nudged him forward.

  “That feels a little counterproductive.”

  James’s tone scraped down Lucy’s spine. “We wouldn’t want that,” she retorted, and backed from the doorway and headed down the stairs.

  “Why are you annoyed by that?” James clicked the door shut and called after her.