The Lake of Dreams - Kim Edwards [104]
“Lucy! You stole them?”
“No, not really. I borrowed them. Though actually, it feels like they belong to us. Or to Iris,” I added, thinking of the lock of hair. “They feel like her letters, actually. Could she even still be alive?”
“I suppose it’s possible. She’d be quite old. Well into her nineties.” My mother put a container down, her chopsticks balanced precisely across the center, and took the letters I handed her, reading through them quickly, shaking her head. “These are amazing to read,” she said, letting the pages fall into her lap.
“Aren’t they? I’ve been captivated for hours.”
She ran her fingers quickly through her short hair. “Are there more?”
“Just one. At least that I have here. There may be more in the last box I didn’t get to see.” I pulled the final letter from the binder, a simple square white envelope, addressed to Iris, dated October 12, 1914, written on lined yellow paper. I read it out loud.
Dearest Iris,
I am here now. I am safe. An attic room, pale yellow wallpaper with a pattern in green. The floor is dark gray. I have a white pitcher and basin, and a narrow bed with a plain white cover. I don’t need more.
They never came for me. I had the address, I asked directions. It did not sound far but it was. Three miles they said, take a carriage they said, but I walked. The satchel was so heavy. I thought my fingers might fall off. Still, I preferred walking to arriving. I stood a long time on the stoop to gather my courage, checking the address again and again. At last I rang the bell.
Her name is Vivian and she is Mrs. Elliot’s sister. She was still talking to someone behind her as she opened the door, laughing, her face turning serious when she saw me. Her skin is pale but not freckled, her hair is the color of oak, creamy brown with a reddish cast and traces of gray, pulled carefully back in a bun. She wore a skirt over softly draping trousers, but otherwise she does not resemble Mrs. Elliot at all.
I handed her the letter.
Her eyes widened. “But you’re a day early! And so pale! Come in, come in!”
So I am here. This house is like no other house. It is very simple, almost bare, with little furniture and no rugs. There are paintings on every wall. And books, too, everywhere. She took me into the kitchen. A man and a woman, Hubert and Jane, were sorting papers. She had me sit and bustled around. Hubert offered me a drink and Jane said nonsense, she’s just a girl, and Vivian said she’s more than a girl, she left her child, give her a drink if she wants it, and put a plate of beef and little egg sandwiches and a glass of warm milk in front of me. I tried to eat it slowly, but could not. They watched me with kind eyes. When I was finished she showed me up to this room. Then I slept all around the clock.
This house has little furniture but it is always full of people. They come and go, there are meetings and suppers and passionate discussions. Some of them do not even knock, they just walk in. And the things they say—Mrs. Elliot is mild in comparison.
The dinners are full of talk and I sit quietly. They are interested in the story of how I came to be here. So I tell them how I used to stand in the hallway when Mrs. Elliot came over and began to talk about the rights of women and the great march she attended in Washington. How I began to slip over to her house when she held her meetings. Cora warned me not to go, but I went anyway. I kept it as quiet as I could. Already my position was in danger; they had not known about you when they agreed I could come. They were sorry for me because they believe I am a widow.
On the day Mrs. Elliot led marchers through The Lake of Dreams, I was working in the garden. The singing came first. Then the women, so many women, maybe three hundred. Their singing voices swelled the air. I put down the garden clippers. I pulled off my gloves, finger by finger. You were upstairs, sleeping. Cora was on the porch and she called