Suddenly, I wanted to cry. Why didn’t you tell me where you were and what you were doing, Winnie? Why did you leave me here and not explain about my real father? Why didn’t Danny write to me and tell me he loved me? And why do you think I am too young to know the truth? I bit my lower lip and was about to burst into tears when under the table, I felt a gentle nudge of someone’s foot against my foot. It turned out to be Derek’s. He was looking at me, steadying me, as if I were a sailboat that had gone off course in the wind.
Perhaps the Stormoguide could have helped us with the hurricanes or thunderclouds that threatened in the sky above, but that barometer could not have helped with the storm brewing inside the Bathburn house.
When the mail came later that morning, I received another card from my father. As the postman handed it to me, I felt a wave of fear. Would this be the letter that would say for sure where he and Danny were? Or would we never know? Would we go on wondering all the rest of our lives, the way it was with some families?
Dimples was down on the rocks below singing and her small flutelike voice wafted through the air. I opened the letter, my hands trembling, hoping it might be a real letter. But it proved to be another prewritten card. On the front of the card was another picture of Bugs Bunny. This time that bucktoothed rabbit was playing the piano. My father had added an arrow pointing to the piano keys.
Derek took one look at the card and drew me towards the piano in the library and opened the top. There we saw all the metal strings lined up and all the little padded hammers ready to tap each string loudly or softly to make the music. On the last, heaviest string that would sound the deepest note was a little piece of paper. It read:
Fliss and Derek,
I do hope one of you plays this old contraption. I always loved it. It would mean a lot to me, and if you learn to play it, I will surely hear each note and chord in my mind and think of you. Don’t forget I love you both.
It is the very saddest thing in the whole world to receive a message from someone who might now be dead. It was perhaps like looking at a star that was so far away that it took millions of years for its light to arrive. By the time you saw that shining light, the faraway star was long dead and gone. I put the card against my heart as if to somehow soak it in or absorb it or at least hold it close.
What would my father say of the small, lovely tornado in the house that was my Winnie? Did he know she would come to stay here and every moment would be a wind-storm because The Gram hated her? I was quite sure that The Gram and Winnie needed to talk. I knew that my father would want them to talk. He would not like to see The Gram leaving every room that my Winnie entered.
Derek went into the parlor now and turned on the radio and the song “Stormy Weather,” sung by Ethel Waters, played into the room. That song was always being aired.
Don’t know why, there’s no sun up in the sky,
Stormy weather.
For me it was the perfect coincidence. As I watched Winnie take a walk down the beach all by herself, I rocked in the porch swing, listening to the song. I did not follow Winnie. I did not know whose child I was anymore.
Derek cheered me up by stuffing a clipping from a magazine under my door the next morning. The article and photograph showed a cute black dog wearing a sailor’s uniform. The caption read, “This dog is named Blackout. He is a mascot of a Coast Guard cutter. There are many dogs and cats serving in the US Navy and Coast Guard and they are treated as servicemen. They all have uniforms. They all have military ID cards and they all get shore leave.” I pinned the photograph up on my wall and it made me laugh. Derek made me laugh. I liked feeling his foot knock against mine under the table.
I looked at my father’s last card, Bugs Bunny playing the piano. I decided then to ask Miss Elkin if I could take piano lessons from her. I would help her with spinning wool later in exchange. I would begin practicing the piano right away. I could hear the Bathburn house stirring now and I thought again of how much it would mean to my father if The Gram could somehow find a way to accept Winnie. I had that plan in mind and I decided this morning to put it into action. Winnie had been here for well over a week and it seemed like a perfect day for my idea, since The Gram was planning to go into town for groceries.
I tucked my father’s card into my pocket and when Dimples came running down the hall at top speed, I whispered my plan in her ear. Her eyes became very large indeed and she looked very solemn and serious. She walked down the hall with her arms flat against her body, not saying a word. She took forever going down the stairs. But finally I led her out into the garden at the front of the house and we stood by the Packard, which was parked by the wild rosebushes.
Then I am rather sorry to report that we went to work. Derek helped. He came darting out the back door with a tool kit in hand and we chose a tire at the back of the car and we went about releasing the valve that held the air in the tire, but of course we didn’t twist it all the way open, so the air would escape slowly.
Later Winnie came downstairs in another awkward, brand-new, a little on the too-big side housedress. “Stephenson’s office purchased these dresses for me, poppet,” she said. “Very sweet of them but they are too big and must look ridiculous.”
I said, “Winnie, we will have breakfast on the porch but would you care for some steamed dandelion greens this morning? There’s a wonderful early patch of them up the road near an old cellar where a house once was.”
“Oh, darling, how lovely,” she said, stepping out into the sunlight. I handed her a colander.
“Shall we ride up on bikes to pick some?” I said.
“What a grand idea!” said Winnie, smiling, but I could see her eyes were filled with shadows. Since she had arrived, they were always filled with shadows.
We set off in the early morning down the road, headed a mile away for the best dandelions growing near an old lilac bush in an overgrown garden long ago abandoned. As we biked along, Winnie called out, “Pretty as this area is, I can’t wait to get you out of here. The Gram is so cross. It must have been just dreadful being here. I wouldn’t have left you if I had any other choice.”
“She’s not really cross,” I said. “She can be quite sweet in her own kind of way. And I do love it here.”
“Oh, I see,” said Winnie. “Well, they let you run wild. You sound American. You don’t even use British words anymore. We’ll have to have a lesson. Get you back on track.”
“I am half American,” I said.
“I see, you’d rather stay here, then. You’d turn down a chance to go off somewhere amusing. You’d rather stay here with that cross woman.”
Soon enough we were picking dandelion greens silently, with more and more clouds piling up between us, just as the greens were piling up in our colander. Hearing the distant sound of the Packard coming along the road, I said to Winnie, “I shall be back in a moment. I need to go get another container. Will you wait here?”
“Yes, poppet,” said Winnie, her housedress full of warm spring wind and sky. I biked off, passing The Gram in the Packard, tootling along. I waved and kept going. I biked a little farther and turned to see The Gram’s car coming to a halt. The tire must finally have gone flat. It was rather perfect timing because it seemed to happen right in front of the old cellar where, soon, returning daffodils would skirt the tumble of rocks and brambles. I could see, in the distance, Winnie running over towards the stopped car. I knew she could fix anything with wheels.
I wasn’t there and I did not know exactly what happened then. I could see Winnie looking at the tire. After that I turned and biked back towards the house. From there on I could only guess. Perhaps Winnie fixed the tire for The Gram, which would have impressed my grandmother beyond measure. She could do nothing with that old car. The Gram couldn’t even back it up. Perhaps then they rode into town together, maybe even yelling and screaming all the way. I do not know exactly what they said but I do know they were gone all morning. They had clearly driven away into town. It seemed to me that t
he front seat of an automobile was always a good place for a nice chat.
Derek and Dimples and Winnie played crazy eights in the back bedroom the next week and I could often hear them shrieking and stamping their feet as one of them won. Winnie had charmed both Derek and Dimples entirely, as if she were a butterfly flitting over the tops of flowers in the garden. Sometimes I would go in and Winnie would say, “Oh, won’t you join us, poppet, my sweet little baby?”
Then I would stand in the doorway. I did not feel at all like a sweet little baby and I didn’t want to go in and play crazy eights. I began to feel Winnie was avoiding talking to me. She never seemed to be alone. She slipped out of it every time I asked her the things I needed to and I felt awkward bringing up her life with Gideon. I seemed every moment to grow more out of step with myself as well, as if being thirteen meant that your old self was constantly bumping into your new self and that neither one of your selves felt entirely at home.
But the storm between The Gram and Winnie had dispersed a little after the dandelion day. The Gram had eased up a tiny bit. At least they were civil now. But I hoped that soon The Gram would soften like butter, like the butter we churned in the old wooden butter churn. Then we wrapped the new butter in white paper and stored it in our icebox, right on top of the ice. I knew how soft and kind The Gram could be.
The next morning I was waiting for the mail as usual when it began to rain and I thought I would close the windows in the parlor. But when I reached the parlor doors they were shut tight. But old houses are known to leak secrets. Doors never close tightly. Rusty latches do not hold, and voices travel easily through open seams, cracks, and crevices.
I could hear The Gram saying, “Mr. Fitzwilliam has sent you another invitation to tea, Winifred. You have a kind of myth around you. But I am asking you not to cause any more trouble. Both my sons love you. Isn’t that enough?”
“I am not proud of what happened in the past,” said Winnie. “Surely you must know that. But I have neither of your sons now. This is not the way it should have gone. I do not think I can live with the way things have gone. Oh, I wish we’d hear from someone. Where could Danny be? How could this be happening?”
“Well, I think what you did to Gideon was despicable. I don’t mind saying it outright. How could you love a man enough to marry him and then when you’re carrying his unborn child, leave him for his brother! I find it outrageous. And then to stay in England out of guilt and fear and not bravely come forward and let Gideon at least meet his daughter.”
“That’s not what happened. I didn’t want to lose Felicity. I wanted to do so much. Too much, perhaps. And I didn’t plan on falling in love with Danny. You must be pleased to see I have now lost everything.” Winnie began to cry.
“Are you planning to take Flissy away again? It will break my heart. Gideon would not want that. You should leave her with us. After all, you practically abandoned her for two years.”
“I did not abandon her! I love my daughter dearly. But I’ve already lost her. You’ve made sure of that.”
I stood there feeling shattered and pulled and stretched and twisted between my grandmother and my mother. If only Derek had been here. He was spending the week with Stu Barker because the Barkers were moving soon. But I needed to talk to him. How could I ever hope to find an answer to anything? Everything seemed broken and missing and lost.
“Dimples,” I asked that night, knowing it was a useless question, “remember when you said your mum’s friend had found the answer to everything?”
“Yes,” said Dimples.
“Well,” I said, “what would it take in trade to get that answer?”
“What is your offer?” asked Dimples.
“I’m not sure yet,” I said.
“But I was promised to silence,” said Dimples and then she fell asleep. I knew she was asleep because she started snoring and that snore was so loud, it could have woken up every ghost in the house, if we had any.
The longer Winnie seemed to avoid speaking about things, the more upset I grew. I was not angry. Not at all. I could never be angry at my Winnie. I had waited so long for her return. But I did feel angry. I knew it was painful for her, but how could she not explain what happened recently with Gideon and Danny? She must know exactly. After all, she was there.
I walked down the hall to Winnie’s room. I paused at the door and then I knocked lightly. In London I never would have knocked on my mum’s door. I would have pushed right in, feeling her room belonged to me. But oddly now all that had shifted and changed. I didn’t know what I felt or thought about my mother.
When I walked in slowly, Winnie looked up at me. She was embroidering a group of butterflies on a white linen cloth. Finally, I said, “Lovely job you are doing, I mean, with the butterflies.”
“Oh, Felicity,” said Winnie. “Won’t you sit down?”
“I am called Flissy mostly now,” I said.
“I see. I hadn’t meant for things to get out of hand the way they have. It’s just been one thing after another. Such a world it is, darling. I am so sorry. Can you forgive me? Remember when we used to laugh together in London?”
“Winnie, I want to know what happened to my father and to Danny. I want to know now.”
“All you talk about is your father. What about your mother? Me? What about me?”
“I want to know what happened to my father.”
“Oh, poppet, I shall be a perfect mum when all this is over. I fear you will hate me for everything that happened. Danny and I should have managed on our own. Perhaps you won’t forgive me, like The Gram, when you hear it all.”
“I want to know, Winnie. I want to know what happened to Gideon.”
“Yes, I know. Danny loves you too, darling. Danny and I raised you. You haven’t forgotten?”
“What happened?” I said, looking again directly into Winnie’s face.
She sighed. “Well, my baby, if you promise not to blame me,” said Winnie, staring down at her hands. “Perhaps you already do. Yes, you do blame me.”
Finally, she opened the drawer of the desk and got out a journal. “I’ve been keeping this since I arrived here. I suppose Bill’s people wouldn’t approve of my putting anything in writing but I did it anyway. You may read the pages about Gideon in France if you like,” she said. And then she turned away and gazed out the window. I took the journal into my room and sat on the canopy bed and began reading.
Danny’s brother, Gideon, looked remarkably like Colonel Helmut Ludswig, the new, soon-to-be-head of the prison in Limoges where Danny and I were held. Gideon arrived from the United States by way of Spain. Finally, in late January, he was escorted over the Pyrenees Mountains into France. He arrived at the Limoges prison dressed as Colonel Ludswig, including a freshly grown mustache. Gideon’s German was absolutely perfect, like Danny’s and his mother’s. They have an uncanny ear for language and mimicry.
When he arrived earlier than was expected, an underling was in charge. The head officer whom Gideon was replacing was having dinner with one of our agents. So when Gideon appeared, this young assistant was flustered by the colonel and completely caught off guard. The colonel was considered eccentric and demanding and he always traveled with a priest and a nun. So accompanying Gideon that night were two men, one dressed as a nun and the other as a priest.
When they first arrived, Gideon acted dismayed that the men had not expected him that night. He feigned anger. He went through the papers on his new desk in a fake rage. He had been instructed in training to scold the underling for an untidy facility. Gideon sent officers to the top floor to straighten up the area for inspection tomorrow. “And I will not be lenient with any messy desks!” he called out. “Presently I shall have a look around and I want you all working. May I have the keys now?” The young assistant, fumbling and nervous, handed him the ring of keys. Gideon then proceeded to the basement with his priest and his nun.
Thanks to our secret sources, Gideon had trained with maps of the prison and he
knew everything, even the names of the guards on duty that night. The nun quickly approached one of the two guards outside the cells downstairs. The priest at the same moment did the same with the second guard. With syringes from their satchels, they sedated each of them until they were both in a deep sleep. Then they removed the guard uniforms and took off their priest and nun clothing and put on the guards’ official clothing.
When Gideon unlocked my cell and walked in, I was sleeping. When he called softly, “Winnie, get up quickly,” I thought I was dreaming. There standing before me was Gideon Bathburn, my ex-husband, the father of my little, beloved daughter, Felicity. I could not believe … No, I could not conceive. I could not understand. I began to cry, thinking it was a strange dream.
But then Gideon touched my shoulder. “Hurry,” he said. “Put this on.” He handed me the nun’s habit that one of his men had worn into the building. The habit reminded me of the convent in Aubeterre. Oh, I knew that convent. I had taken many children there myself for protection on their way to escape out of the country. I rapidly put the black habit over my torn prison clothes. Then I set the white, starched headdress over my head.
Gideon took my hand. The two men now dressed as guards lugged one of the sleeping men into my bed and covered him up with the blanket. Then we quickly headed for Danny’s cell. As we walked down the passageway, prisoners were calling out, “Sister, sister, listen to me, help me.”
“Hush,” we called. “Quiet.”
“Please take this letter out with you and mail it when you can,” one prisoner called. And I did. I reached for it and took it.
We found Danny’s cell and he stood up from the floor where he lay, a terrible, thin scarecrow, a battered, wounded, bedraggled scarecrow. Danny was given the priest’s black jacket, tunic, trousers, a black felt hat, and white priest’s collar. The second sleeping man was dragged into the cell and covered under the blanket.
Romeo Blue (9780545520706) Page 17