Chapter Nineteen #3
“We fell in love,” Agatha said. “It surprised both of us. Me, because I had thought I was beyond things like love and commitment, and Minnie because she had grown up in a restrictive and difficult family and hadn’t been given a margin to think about anything more than work.
I think she had come to a place where she didn’t believe there was anything but work.
Her parents hadn’t had the gift of innkeeping like her grandparents did, and their marriage was troubled, besides.
They had three boys when they were young, quite a bit older than Minnie, and lost them in the war.
Then they lost themselves. Minnie and her sister, Maisie, were late-in-life babies.
I can’t imagine they had real childhoods. ”
“But Morag loved the inn?” Edie needed Morag to have had a chance to love something other than a woman who left her fifty years ago.
“Yes. She had the gift. Even in the beginning when she was still shoveling out from under the pile her parents had left, Gregory Place was a charming spot for young people and students. And of course she loves Lincolnshire. She’d shown me some of her favorite places.
The church, the manor, the castles. After I’d gone, there was a time, a long time, when Gregory Place was one of those secret hideaways for the rich and famous. ”
“My mother never forgot her visit,” Cosima said. “It changed her life, I think.”
“I have no doubt. It did mine.”
“But you just said you were never there to see it in its prime.” Edie was frustrated. “You’re rich and famous! Why would you stay away? Did Morag come here?”
The novelist shook her head.
“Agatha!” Edie stomped her foot, making Sherlock look at her balefully.
“We fought. I came to understand in Harlaxton, from how I was accepted there, from the friends I made and the little church community, that I should give my mother another chance. I couldn’t ever hide who I was.
My mother had been made single by the war, and she despaired over me.
It got worse until I left and we didn’t speak.
I decided to write her. I wrote her to tell her I missed her, because I did, and I hoped we could have another chance, and of course that I was in love, so I believed in it again.
She called the inn. She wanted me home. She was dying. ”
Edie turned toward the strangled noise Cosima made in her throat. She reached across and held out her hand, and Cosima took it, shaking her head. “I’m fine.”
“I’m sorry,” Agatha said, looking at their joined hands.
“I talked to Minnie. I knew, of course, she was in a precarious place with the inn. Her parents were selling it to her, making her pay in installments directly to them. It’s not my story to tell beyond that, but this and other obligations meant her life was limited. ”
“You fought, and that was it?”
Agatha looked away at the fire again. “We tried the best that we were able to at the time. We ran away for a few precious days. Her sister covered for her so we could go to Rouen. She wanted to see where Joan of Arc was burned and Richard the Lionheart left his heart. Barcelona, because I wanted to show her the basilica. We hired a car, both of us pretending we could find a way to make it work.”
Agatha was gazing toward their clasped hands, her eyes unfocused and bright with tears she was holding back.
“But after we’d returned, when I went to give her my address, how to write me, how to visit, she told me she didn’t want to know.
She said she didn’t see a way for us to be together.
It would hurt too much to pretend. Again, not my part of the story to tell.
I couldn’t leave it like that, so I made the hunt.
I put it in the guest book for her to find me.
Every year, I wrote my letter for the nun in Barcelona to keep.
I’ve settled for knowing I’m giving the woman I love what she wanted.
I don’t really expect anyone to understand. ”
Edie did understand, and she hated it. Hated it, hated it, hated it. It made her want to burn everything to the ground, this story. It made her want to cry. It made her want to tear up the guest book into pieces and feed it to the restored Victorian fireplace in the lounge.
Fuck this story. This was not the story that belonged at the end of the map.
“She sent us on this hunt,” Cosima said. “Everyone in the village knows about it, too. That you left a treasure hunt, but everyone also believes it’s treasure. They think Morag’s been guarding it. But she sent us to find you. What do you think we’re supposed to do with that?”
Agatha shook her head again. “I can’t hope to know.”
“Well.” Edie got to her feet. Leapt to her feet, maybe, spilling over with too much energy.
“You will know. In deference to your great age, I won’t make us set off right now.
I assume you have a room or can point us to the entrance to the land of the fae where you are king to sleep for the night.
Then I’m driving us to Harlaxton first thing. Sherlock’s welcome to come.”
“I don’t leave Wales.” Agatha said it without much force.
“And before all of this, I had basically never left Wisconsin,” Edie said. “But it turns out it was never that hard. Pack snacks. I’m not stopping on the way unless we run out of petrol.”
“There’s a guest room at the end of the hall. Make the bed up yourself. Linens in the wardrobe.” Agatha sat up straight, and Edie thought that maybe she seemed a little excited. Maybe. “I’m taking Sherlock outside.”
With that, the famous Welsh novelist got up, stepped into her boots, and disappeared into the dark with her dog.
Edie grabbed the rest of the Hobnobs and Cosima’s hand. She was starting to pull her down the hall when Cosima drew her close instead.
“Edie.” She put her hands around Edie’s face. Her eyes were blue, blue, but Edie was afraid to look at them in case they told her yet another story she did not want to hear.
“Yeah?” she croaked.
“We’re not Agatha and Morag.”
She turned to kiss Cosima’s palm. Closed her eyes. “I know that. But I also know I’m perfectly capable of behaving like a wankhammer for at least fifty years, and I’m scared.”
She tried to keep her voice light. Tried to keep her faith intact, and to remember that it, and her optimism, was a gift. Not a curse. Edie wasn’t cursed. The greatest love of her life was not doomed. Even if she couldn’t see the path in front of them, it didn’t mean they wouldn’t find one.
Edie wrapped her arms around Cosima.
Her treasure.