Chapter 13 Clara
CHAPTER 13? CLARA
The Atlantic Ocean
“Hallo!”
I startled and sat up, embarrassed to be found asleep. Wynnie was dozing on my shoulder, and we were slumped into the couch of the ship’s library. I blinked and closed my mouth. What a sight I must be, draped in my yellow slicker, my hair damp with rain, my head back and my mouth wide open in sleep.
On day three aboard the SS United States , the ocean liner had plunged and risen with a storm, and Wynnie and I found shelter from our seasickness in the library.
A man with a ruddy complexion under white hair and with a beard like Santa Claus stood in the library. His voice interrupted a dream in which I was falling, falling, falling through a wide-open sky, until I remembered I could fly. I was just about to lift my wings.
“Hello.” I blinked to clear my eyes. “So sorry. We must have dozed off.”
“I’d say so.” He laughed and adjusted his tartan vest. The aroma of pipe smoke and something woodsy surrounded him, and it was surprisingly comforting.
“The ship,” I said. “It’s… still.”
“Yes, the storm has passed. Or we sailed right through it to the other side.”
“Oh, thank goodness. I wasn’t doing so well, as you can see.”
“No one but the hardiest of us do well in seas like that.” His British accent was now obvious, and I wondered if this was the type of man Charlie Jameson might be—an older man with a beard and rimless glasses, an air of sophisticated kindness, and a quick laugh. I hadn’t asked Charlie anything about himself. How old was he? What was his job? I knew only his address near St. James’s Square.
Wynnie woke up and rubbed at her eyes. “I am so happy we’re off that roller coaster,” she said.
She caught the gaze of the man who stood in front of us and went quiet.
He nodded at her with a smile, and she relaxed. He pointed to my lap—a copy of The Middle Place , which Wynnie had found on the shelves. “Good book, isn’t it? It was one of my children’s favorites,” he said. “I always found it a bit whimsical, to be frank—a little child flitting between worlds?” He laughed good-naturedly. “Probably a deficit of imagination on my part.”
“The author is my grandma,” Wynnie said with a smile, and slipped out of her rain jacket.
“Your grandma, you say?” The man lifted one eyebrow and sat in the green velvet armchair across from us.
“Wynnie.” I squeezed her leg.
He smiled, one that was both curious and ready for conversation. It had been this way for most of the journey: people eager for chatting, seeming to grow weary of their traveling companion and ready for new company. Our dinner table was composed of two couples, one on their honeymoon and the other an older couple on their way for a tour of England. They spoke to Wynnie and me more than to each other.
“Are you from England, I assume?” I asked him, desperate for a change of subject from my mother and her novel.
“Cumbria, the Lake District,” he said. “I’m on my return journey home after a visit with my son in New York City. Why he wants to live there is beyond me.” He shook his head and exhaled through pursed lips. “After the war, he’d had just about enough of England. I believe he’ll come home eventually, but for now he seems quite happy with the hustle and bustle of a city that would drive me to distraction.”
“I think that’s why people like it,” I said. “It drives them to distraction.”
“For some, maybe. My son says it is the people, the interesting humanity. He can’t get enough of it—the energy and verve of it all.”
“Not for me,” I said. “Give me my small town, some paints and canvas, my little girl”—I pulled her close—“and a wide-open view to the water.”
“Exactly!” He clapped his hands together and then reached into his breast pocket to retrieve his pipe and a packet of tobacco. “Do you mind?”
“Oh, not at all,” I said. “But don’t be offended if we leave. Honestly, you are welcome to your pipe, but Wynnie here has sensitive lungs, and sometimes—”
“Oh no, then. No. I’d rather forgo my pipe than have you two lovely angels leave me.”
I believed we’d moved on from Wynnie’s declaration until he leaned forward, placed his palms on his knees, and spoke to her again: “Your grandmother, you say?”
“Yes, she’s my mother’s mother.” She tapped my cheek in an endearing little motion. “That’s a grandmother.”
He looked at me and a sparkle filled his green eyes behind rimless spectacles. “Is that so? Or does your sprite here have a wild and wonderful imagination?”
I would not lie in front of Wynnie. “She does have a wild and wonderful imagination, but also, yes, the author is… was my mother.”
“And this her only novel, if I remember correctly?”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t she follow a book this famous?”
“She disappeared twenty-five years ago.”
“And we’re going to find out what happened to her,” Wynnie said.
I should have been stricter with Wynnie about what to tell strangers, but she hadn’t said a word at our dinners or social hours. Not a peep at the shuffleboard or the movie theater. Nothing to anyone until now, in this library.
“Are you journeying to see her play?” he asked.
I was fully awake now. “Her play?”
“Yes, indeed. Well, I don’t rightly know if it is her play, but it is a play in Cumbria based on that book you have there on your lap. It started maybe five years ago or so at the local playhouse. It’s called A World Apart . I always hope it will end differently, but it never does.” He laughed. “I’m assuming that is why any of us see something over and over—either we hope this time it will end differently or we love the magic of a particular story.”
“Yes, I don’t think you’re the only one. I still wish it would have ended another way.”
The man settled back in his seat. “I’m Finneas Andrews, by the way. I’m sorry for not offering a proper introduction when I burst in here.”
“Clara Harrington.” I held out my hand. “And this is my daughter, Wynnie.” We shook hands. “And it would have been hard to offer a proper introduction when I was asleep,” I said.
His laugh echoed in the room, a wonderful one that could ease any tension. “Well now, how interesting that the author is your mother.”
“I must be honest—I don’t know anything about this play you’re talking about. Can you tell me more?” I was confused, because surely I would have heard about this. Dad needed to give permission for every production, reprint, or version of The Middle Place . But he’d never told me about a play in England.
Wynnie picked up the book from my lap. “In the play, does Emjie wear a skirt of ferns?”
“Oh yes she does,” he said.
“Mama!” Wynnie placed the book on the coffee table. “We must go. We are going to…” She looked at the man.
“Cumbria: the most beautiful part of England and quite possibly the planet. But I am decidedly biased about my view of the world.”
I patted Wynnie’s leg. “We’re visiting London. Not the Lake District.”
“It’s an easy train ride,” he said. “But I’m sure whatever you must do in London will fill your days with great pleasure.” He glanced between us. “Are you truly going to look for her?”
“No,” I answered quickly. “We are not. She left when I was eight years old; she’s a mystery to us, just as she is to the rest of the world. But…” I shrugged and tilted my head toward Wynnie. “A child’s heart never gives up hoping.”
“You’re right,” he said. “And I’d wager that a daughter’s heart never gives up, either.”
“You’re right,” I told him, feeling a swell of tears. “But dreams are dreams.”
“Oh no, no,” he said, and smiled at me. “Dreams are so much more than that. They are visions of the future, they are whispers of our desires, they are hope. We cannot and we must not live without dreams, Clara.”
I laughed. “Mr. Andrews, if I may ask, exactly what is it that you do in Cumbria?”
“I had a psychoanalysis practice in London but longed for the land of home and returned to the family farm and our Herdwick sheep years ago.”
“Then for you, dreams indeed are more than just dreams.”
Finneas nodded and smiled before glancing at Wynnie, with the book in her lap. “You like to read adventure stories?”
“I do!” Her smile widened, her eyes bright behind her glasses.
He walked to the shelves, ran his hand along the books until he made a noise. “Aha!” He pulled one out and brought it to Wynnie. “ Swallows and Amazons. It’s set in the Lake District. I believe you’ll love it.”
Wynnie immediately opened the illustrated book with the mirrored lakes, rounded mountains, and pebbled shorelines. “Look, Mama!” she said. “These look like your paintings.”
“The author painted them himself,” Finneas said.
I remembered Mother had once read this book to me. What happened to the book, I had no idea, but I was happy to see it again, like an old friend.