The Story She Left Behind

Chapter 40 Clara

CHAPTER 40? CLARA

Lake District, England

Morning arrived, and sunlight filled the bedroom with a bright cheerfulness that belied the nervous flutter in my chest.

I sat and noticed Wynnie was gone from our bed. I rose and cracked open the door and heard her voice among the others in the hallway. I quickly bathed and brushed my hair into a high ponytail, found some mascara in the dregs of my valise, and swiped some on my lashes. I knew I was taking too much care for breakfast, but now I must face Charlie Jameson.

After that kiss, the feeling that he saw me and who I really was overwhelmed me—what adolescent silliness. I’d forgotten the tenderness of need, of desire. But now it was here again, in the wrong place and time.

Yes, I’d been waiting for that kiss, or maybe I was waiting for Mother or answers and the kiss took its place. Sometimes I confused the emotions. Mother’s leaving created such a great thirst of loneliness in me that through the years I’d tried to quench it with things that would never fulfill me. Including the wrong man.

I placed my hand on my stomach, on the bees of desire zipping around inside.

I’d left Charlie sitting on the couch in a room with candles dripping beeswax on the brass dishes, having no idea how he felt about us.

I opened the bedroom door and made my way to the breakfast room, and there they were: Charlie, his mother, and Wynnie, seated around the table and laughing. Charlie held a London Times with the headlines reading TV to Show Crowning and 5 Killed in Riots in Casablanca and then in smaller type, as if it weren’t an event that had changed our life, London Blacked Out by Fog.

They all looked at me.

“Good morning,” Charlie said first, and maybe I imagined it, but I heard a question in the greeting. Is it a good morning?

Mrs. Jameson sat with her hands folded on her lap. The places were set, but breakfast wasn’t out. She cleared her throat. “Clara, I must begin your day with an apology. It was rude of me to leave so abruptly last night.”

“No need for apology,” I told her as I sat, picked up the linen napkin, folded it onto my lap, and motioned for Wynnie to do the same.

“Yes, there is. I can’t imagine what you’ve been through. And thinking I might have something to do with keeping your mother from you set me quite off balance. But I can assure you that I know nothing about this language or her whereabouts. I promise I will help you in any way I can.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Jameson,” I said.

“Pippa. Please call me Pippa.”

Wynnie let out a sigh. “It’s such a pretty name,” she said. “A happy name.”

I smiled at Pippa, at the way she softened. “Pippa, thank you for this refuge and sanctuary. I promise we’ll leave as soon as I can get to London for my passport.”

“Please don’t rush. It aways seems such a waste that a child isn’t here to see all the magical lights and decorations. This place quite assuredly sparkles come the holidays. Just waiting on my Charlie or Archie to give me grands.”

“Mum!” Charlie said.

“Be careful what you wish for,” I told her with a smile. Wynnie took my hand under the table, and I squeezed her fingers.

“I’m enchanted by your mother’s work,” Pippa said. “I’d love to talk to you about her. If you’d allow it.”

“I can talk about what I remember,” I said. “It’s not much.” I told her of my childhood memories of Emjie’s fantasy world, of late-night swims and magical mornings. “Other than my childhood, I don’t know much more than you can read in the articles and biographies. She left when I was eight years old.”

“Same age as me,” Wynnie piped up.

Pippa smiled at Wynnie and then returned her focus to me. “Your memories must be vague.”

“Yes and no. There are some that are as bright and clear as that landscape outside. And then large swaths of blankness. Sometimes I don’t know if what I remember is real or made up or a photo.”

She nodded. “Memory is odd like that, isn’t it?”

“Yes, it is.”

Moira entered the room then and set plates of steaming poached eggs and salmon in front of us. “Good day to you all,” she said. “A bright and lovely one it is!”

“Good morning,” we all chimed in together as she slipped out of the room.

Pippa stared out the window. The sky was wiped clean of clouds, the blue of the deep glacial lake, one mirroring the other while the moody fells rose above. Pippa turned back to me. “And sometimes memories fool you. Fool you into believing that things were different than they were. It’s like we must make it all better by looking back. Nostalgia.”

“There’s a book about my grandma,” Wynnie said. “A book that tells her whole life. The life before Mama.”

“I know, dear,” Pippa said. “But I haven’t read it.” Then she looked to me and set her lips straight as if she were sorry for the stories about Mother. “Clara, can you tell me about your art and illustrations?”

“I can,” I said. “Now there’s a subject I know something about.” I laughed and her smile was my reward.

We ate and chatted. Charlie remained quiet, nibbling at his breakfast and listening with a small smile, as if he’d been waiting for me to talk about my art and life.

“So,” Pippa said, “you love illustrating?”

“I do,” I said. “It is when I feel most like myself.”

“How so?” she asked, taking a bite of her poached egg off a silver fork.

“I think there is another world inside this world. Many worlds, to be accurate. Mother wrote about them, but the images I draw aren’t cut from the fabric of the world we see every day. Instead they come from a hidden place, a realm more fantastical, a bit more elusive and I hope incandescent.”

Pippa’s eyes, to my total surprise, filled with tears. “Yes. That’s how I feel about my gardens and friends. I once gathered a little painting club,” she said with a smile. “It was just me and Nelle and Isolde, and once in a bit a friend would join. We set up in the third-floor room, a perch above the world, and painted. I was terrible at it, but they were wonderful. I have some of their art in the house. I don’t know why we quit.” She stared off as if she could see herself upstairs with an easel and brush.

“I’d love to see some of the paintings,” I said, even as I felt the desire to paint washing over me.

She nodded. “And the maps Wynnie told us about?”

“I started painting on them when my mother left us. I was, to be honest, obsessed with where she might have gone, and I wanted maps of the whole world. Dad found them for me. Some he’d order; others he found in old flea markets or discarded. I’d paint what I imagined existed in that land—flowers, trees, birds, fish—anything I could find in the encyclopedia. And then, sadly, I would try to imagine Mother living there. But it turned into more than a hobby. Now I get paid for it.” I laughed. “That sounds crass. Meaning, people hire me to paint on maps of the places they love the best.”

“Where do you imagine she went?” Pippa leaned forward.

“It has changed through the years, and I’ve imagined her as so many people, including Beatrix Potter, who Charlie told me lived a few doors down.”

“She’s my very favorite illustrator,” Wynnie added. “Except for Mama.”

“Well,” Pippa said, “her house is called Hill Top and is now open to tour. They have original drawings and all sorts of things, and you can walk through Peter Rabbit’s garden.” She winked at Wynnie, who grabbed my hand.

“Let’s go today!” Wynnie said.

I smiled. “We have no other plans while we wait for our passports, and I think that’s a grand idea.”

Pippa clapped her hands and looked to Wynnie. “Did you know that the lake right outside”—she waved her hand toward the window—“Esthwaite Water, is the very lake that Jemima Puddle-Duck flew over when she was looking for a place to lay her eggs?”

“Right there?” Wynnie jumped up and pointed in the direction of the lake, her face aglow.

“Yes,” Pippa said. “Right there.”