Contents
Title Page
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
Chapter Forty-Four
Chapter Forty-Five
Chapter Forty-Six
Chapter Forty-Seven
Chapter Forty-Eight
Chapter Forty-Nine
Chapter Fifty
Chapter Fifty-One
Chapter Fifty-Two
Chapter Fifty-Three
Chapter Fifty-Four
Chapter Fifty-Five
Chapter Fifty-Six
Chapter Fifty-Seven
Chapter Fifty-Eight
Chapter Fifty-Nine
Chapter Sixty
Chapter Sixty-One
Chapter Sixty-Two
Chapter Sixty-Three
Chapter Sixty-Four
Chapter Sixty-Five
Chapter Sixty-Six
Chapter Sixty-Seven
Chapter Sixty-Eight
Chapter Sixty-Nine
Chapter Seventy
Chapter Seventy-One
Chapter Seventy-Two
Chapter Seventy-Three
Chapter Seventy-Four
Chapter Seventy-Five
Chapter Seventy-Six
Chapter Seventy-Seven
Author’s Note
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Copyright
Derek and I were heading towards an old house with a dark granite facade, tucked among a group of pine trees on a knoll above the ocean. As we got nearer, the house looked a bit like a large, angry cat sitting up at the top of the ridge, not wanting to be disturbed. There was something straightaway about that house I recognized, as if I had seen it before. But I hadn’t. It was the first time I had been here.
“Derek, wait. You’re going too fast,” I called out. He was the long-legged quick one and I was still smaller and younger by a year. I was quite anxious to catch up actually, but I didn’t suppose I ever would. No matter how hard I tried, I would always be a year younger than Derek.
He seemed a bit moody today, but I rather liked moody. It could be quite dashing when hovering over someone like Derek. I would have followed Derek to the edge of the world, if he had wanted me to. And then perhaps we would have had to hold hands because it must be quite windy at the edge of the world.
At the top of the path, we came to the front of the shuttered-up, unwelcoming house. We stopped at the door and Derek pulled the cord that rang a bell. There was a tilting marble statue of an angel near the path, but then the wind came along in a fierce way and knocked the angel over, right in front of our eyes. It soon lay in the wet autumn leaves and rain, staring up at the clouds.
Derek pulled the cord again and through the glass I could see a blurry shadow coming towards us. The door opened. “Oh, Derek,” Mr. Fitzwilliam kind of shouted out into the rainy wind. “Hang on to your hats. The wind will steal them if it can. If it can, it will steal your scarves. I’ve seen scarves carried away in the wind to who knows where…. Aha, I see my angel has fallen over again. No bother. I’ll get it later. Come in quickly. You must be Flissy B. Bathburn?”
“Yes, most of the time,” I said, “though I used to be Felicity, actually.”
“Well, either way, do come in and hang on to everything,” Mr. Fitzwilliam said in a growling, shouting, windy kind of way. “I have lost too many hats to who knows where.”
We stepped into the dark, gloomy hallway. I started writing a letter in my head to Winnie and Danny immediately. I was always writing to my mum and to my dad, but they never answered me because they were missing or lost somewhere in Europe. I couldn’t mail any of my letters to them because I didn’t know where they were.
Dear Winnie and Danny,
Today we’ve come to see Mr. Fitzwilliam. He’s helping Derek with something. Derek hasn’t told me what. Mr. Fitzwilliam’s house could use a bit of freshening up. He has statues in his hallway.
Love,
Your Fliss
We went down that very long hallway with all those brooding statues staring off towards the darkness. We finally came out into the drawing room and there was a fire going in a great black marble fireplace, one of those kind that look rather like a big, glowing mouth that could easily swallow you up. But I was relieved to see it, as I was quite chilled from our walk along the coast.
“Please do sit down,” Mr. Fitzwilliam said. “Feel free to look around. You know this house was designed by a famous architect in the last century.” He watched us both carefully as he spoke. “Yes, the day he died, the design for this house was sitting on his desk. But unfortunately for all, someone broke in and stole the papers the moment he died. Was the architect murdered? Why would someone steal plans for a house? Those questions were never answered. However, after things settled down, the plans showed up at auction and my grandfather was able to purchase them and he built this house. I guess I’m a bad grandson, after all the trouble he went to, I am thinking of selling the place. Would you care for some tea?”
“Lovely high ceilings,” I said. “If you were very tall, you’d feel quite comfortable in here.” It sounded as if I wasn’t comfortable in the house, which I hadn’t meant to say. But to be quite honest, I did feel a bit uneasy. Perhaps it was the sad story of the poor architect who died or was murdered. Or the way Mr. Fitzwilliam kept an eye on me as if I were a hat that was about to get blown away to who knows where.
We sat at a little table and Mr. Fitzwilliam brought out a pot of tea, saying, “Oh well, I heard you were English and that you’d been dropped off, so to speak, by your parents to stay with your American grandmother up the road. Oh, and I know how the British like their tea!” He poured the tea and I stirred in some sugar. He seemed to have a whole sugar bowl of it. We hardly ever saw that much sugar these days because it was rationed now.
“Oh yes, I know all about you. Derek’s told me. He talks about you quite a lot, actually. But I don’t suppose he’s told you anything about me. Has he?” He was trying to smile but he had a naturally glowering kind of face that didn’t take on a smile very well. When he did manage one, it was a bit craggy and fierce looking.
“Have you told me anything about Mr. Fitzwilliam, Derek?” I said, scrunching up my nose, trying to think. “Did you, and I forgot?”
“Well, no matter,” said Mr. Fitzwilliam. “The truth is, I’ve been helping
old Derek here. Helping him with something important. He’s trying to locate someone.”
“What sort of a someone?” I said, taking a careful bite of a smooshy chocolate biscuit.
“Fliss,” said Derek, “Mr. Fitzwilliam has been trying to help me locate, um, my father. My real father.”
I felt a bit tippy for a moment, as if the floor were slanting downhill suddenly. “Oh, Derek, shouldn’t you ask first at home? It might upset everyone,” I said.
“Really? I don’t see any reason for a foster boy not to search for his real father. And that’s just what we’re working on, isn’t it, Derek? It takes time. We’re doing our best, Flissy. Am I right about your nickname?” said Mr. Fitzwilliam, frowning at his housekeeper, who stood suddenly in the doorway. He shook his head at her quietly. She was staring at me. I think she was deaf, because Mr. Fitzwilliam used sign language to tell her something. Then she quickly turned and left the room.
Perhaps it was because the wind picked up from the south suddenly and started rattling and battling against the far windows, making great washes of rain stream all over the glass, but I began to feel just a bit more uneasy. One of my feet was ever so cold and the other one was quite toasty, and whenever that happened, it meant I was feeling nervous about something.
Mr. Fitzwilliam sat back and eyed me. “So your mother is away, I hear.”
“Yes,” I said. “Far away.”
“But where?” said Mr. Fitzwilliam. “Have you any notion about it at all?”
“Not at all,” I said, looking down.
“I find myself fascinated by your mother. What’s her name?”
“Winnie,” I said.
“Yes, I’m fascinated by Winnie. I understand she is very beautiful and yet I’m curious about someone who could leave her child on the coast of Maine and go back into the war in Europe, and for what reason?”
“Well, I couldn’t say, really. I think she went back because she loves roses and she wanted to be in London when they bloom,” I said. Then I rolled my eyes round the room, wondering how my answer had fared. Had it fallen on its face or had it slipped along unnoticed?
“Ah, of course. I should have thought of that. Roses, yes. Well, I hear she’s magnificent,” he whispered.
“From whom?” I said. I often liked to use the word whom in its proper place. But whenever I used it, Derek always went to pieces laughing over it.
“Oh, I hear things. People saying this and people saying that. Take another cookie. You too, Derek,” he said. “I hope you will tell me more about your mother. I do know she mails things to the Bathburn house. I hear she’s as lovely as a butterfly. Just as pretty and delicate as a swallowtail. I have more cookies and lots of time. I’m very interested.”
“Derek, we might be too busy to sit and talk. Perhaps we should head back before it storms,” I said, frowning and trying to smile at the same time.
“You know, I tend to be good at finding people. You see, here I have located an address for Derek’s birth father. When a person has been living with a family, without official records, it isn’t always easy. But I followed a lead and have come up with this.” And he pulled a piece of paper from a little side pocket and he waved it in the air like a flag. “He’s only given us a hotel address, the Eastland Park Hotel in Portland. I took the liberty of mailing him your address too. So one of you will have to get in touch. Perhaps you will be the one to reach out first, Derek.” Then he dropped the paper on the little table in front of Derek.
Derek flopped back on the sofa and I thought he suddenly seemed quite pale round the edges. He looked down at the paper and then he closed his eyes.
“Oh, but, Derek,” I said, leaving my teacup on the table and going to sit beside him, “don’t you think we ought to ask The Gram and Uncle Gideon first, I mean …” I took the opportunity to touch Derek’s hand, not the one that got paralyzed by polio when he was sick last year, but the other perfectly good one. I squeezed it gently and I meant for that squeeze to tell him that we ought not to be talking about any of this. But Derek didn’t seem to hear me. He had gone all silent, like a cabinet with its doors closed and locked.
“This is a wonderful opportunity, Derek. One that may not come along again,” said Mr. Fitzwilliam a few moments later. “And in the meantime, if you’ve finished your tea, come into my garden room at the back. In his day, my grandfather called it a conservatory, but we’re modern folks now, aren’t we? To us, it’s a garden room. Felicity Bathburn Budwig will like this, won’t she, Derek? And as we walk together toward our garden room, perhaps we could have a little chat and you could tell me when and if your mother ever comes to visit. I adore butterflies.”
My head started to spin. I looked up at the ceiling, where a carved figure seemed to be swimming among birds in the plaster.
Derek patted my back in a chummy way that made me feel a bit better. “Oh, Fliss, you’ll like the garden room. It’s full of butterflies. Mr. Fitzwilliam hatches them from cocoons. They live in there. That’s what I wanted to show you. That’s why I brought you here.”
“But, Derek,” I said, “weren’t we supposed to hang these posters downtown? Didn’t the air-raid warden ask us to do that for him?” I unrolled one of the posters and showed it to Mr. Fitzwilliam and Derek. It pictured a great multicolored battleship sinking in waves and underneath were the words LOOSE LIPS SINK SHIPS.
“Lovely artwork and a most important message,” said Mr. Fitzwilliam, walking away.
Derek then pulled me along as Mr. Fitzwilliam beckoned us from the end of a dark hallway. I looked back at the table and saw that the crumpled piece of paper was gone. Derek must have put it in his pocket. I had hoped he would leave it here and forget the whole matter.
We followed Mr. Fitzwilliam into the garden room, which proved to be all glass. There were green trees and flowering plants in that room, just as if we were outside on a summer day. And this was late September 1942, on the cold, windy, rainy coast of Maine. Among all the flowers and trees, there were hundreds of butterflies, all different sizes and shapes. They floated over my head and brushed against my hair, beautiful blue ones and tiny yellow ones and stunning black-and-orange monarchs. I thought for a moment about my mum, Winnie, somewhere in France. I felt quite nervous because I knew very well I wasn’t supposed to talk about the work my mum had been doing. I knew the code name she used. It fluttered now across my mind.
On the way home I decided Derek’s mood matched the autumn sea. Both were rough and shadowy, verging on stormy. We didn’t walk home along the water because the south wind was even more fierce down there on the rocks and it would have been like walking against a wall of wind. Up here on the road, we were closer to the tumbling clouds and the gray, stirred-up sky.
“Derek,” I said as we passed the old White Whale Inn with its long, lonely porches, “perhaps we should not go back there to Mr. Fitzwilliam’s house. How did he go about finding your father? And wouldn’t it upset everyone at home if they knew?” I was walking backwards, all of me pushing against the wet wind.
“Never mind,” said Derek, looking up at the sky, letting the rain hit his cheeks. “It’s my business, that’s all. Mr. Fitzwilliam feels that it’s my choice and it is. Perhaps they don’t have to know.”
Derek smashed his foot down in the center of a puddle in front of us. Then he kicked at the air.
“I don’t think I like Mr. Fitzwilliam,” I said. “He seems a bit nosy.”
We were getting closer to the Bathburn house, my grandmother’s house. I could see it rising up from the rocky point. It was brown and sober looking with all of its many roofs and gables. As we drew closer I could hear music. Uncle Gideon was playing the piano. Whenever he played, it seemed to thunder out to the whole world.
Just as we neared the garden gate we passed a group of American soldiers in training. They were jogging along the road in khaki pants and white undershirts, which we called vests in England. I felt dreadfully sorry for them as it was quite rainy and wet. Derek
said there was a training camp nearby and we often saw soldiers in town, because America had joined the war ten months ago. That was the war that I thought I had left behind in England when my mum, Winnie, and my dad, Danny, brought me here last year for safekeeping.
“Well, Mr. Fitzwilliam was helping me. It was his idea. At first I was unsure, but now I think it might be something I should do,” Derek said, opening the back door at my grandmother’s house. He had such brown eyes and they seemed almost black at this moment, with extra shadows stirring round in them. We stepped into the house, headed towards the kitchen. Piano music rippled down the hall and through the air.
On the metal, enamel-topped table in the kitchen were two sandwiches sitting on a blue willow plate. The plate had a funny crack along the rim and I was thinking it looked like a strange little smile. And then I noticed leaning against the plate was a letter, an envelope addressed to Derek Blakely. Most people did not know that Derek’s true, real last name was Blakely. Everybody thought it was Bathburn. We didn’t ever talk much about it and so it was very strange to see that name. I wasn’t sure that I had read the words properly and so I looked closer. The upper left corner said it was from Edmund Blakely.
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