After Forever Ends - Ramone Melodie. Страница 49

“Thank you,” I told her as she thrust it into my hand, “I don’t know what to say!”

She grinned, looking between the two of us for a moment, “Don’t say a thing at all, Silvia. Just use it well and wisely. And remember these words from an old lady…life can be cruel and at times can be downright ugly, but as long as you remember what you saw when you first knew you loved each other and keep finding it over and over again, there is nothing that you can’t get through together. Not a single thing!” She took a sharp breath, “Now, Mister Dickinson, may I give you a hug as a good bye?” She stood on her tiptoes to embrace him and patted him lovingly on the back, “Hopefully not a forever one, I’d like to see you again. Please do keep your brother in line,” She released him and turned to me, “And one for you, Missus Dickinson, who shall forever be Miss Cotton in my mind…I still can’t get past it,” She laughed, giving me a tight squeeze. “Come back and visit an old lady once or twice! Or give me a ring and let me know how it is going with you two! Now, go on! Get on with your lives! And make them happy ones, too!” She looked at her watch, “I’ve got a plane to catch! I’m spending the first part of my holiday in Monte Carlo!” And with that, she scuttled off and disappeared into the halls of Bennington.

“She’s an angel,” Oliver grinned as he took my hand and began to walk with me toward the gate.

“You really do fancy her, don’t you?” I asked him seriously. He didn’t respond, but kept looking at the school. I slit open the envelope with my finger and opened it, drawing out the card, “Oh my!”

“What is it?”

“Remember when she said that what she doesn’t see herself someone always tells her?”

“Yep.”

“It’s a certificate for lumber from a yard from the staff, like she said. Wow, a lot of them signed the card! And there’s a business card with a note. Oh, my goodness!”

“What?”

“Professor Walker’s son’s a bloody plumber and he’ll do the house at a discount!” I grinned, waving the paper, “I always knew I was his favourite!”

“Yeah, he’s sweet on you. Lots of blokes are, even the Profs. Dirty minded old buzzard he is, if you ask me. You probably didn’t even need to take an exam in his class to pass, yeah?” Oliver turned to me, and then looked back at the school with a deep, longing sigh, “I understand that completely, believe me. You bring that out in a man. But I do know now what I would have done if you hadn’t come to Bennington. I would have gotten past the age difference and I would have run off with that brilliant, beautiful old lady, Headmistress Pennyweather, and I’d have made her my own!”

“No,” I put my arm through his, “Because I’d have had an urge to come to Wales first and I’d have beamed you in the back of a head with a rubber ball. You’d have had no choice but to abandon your feelings for her and run away with me.”

“You know what? You’re right.”

“I’m always right.”

Oliver laughed and pulled me to his side, “That’s why I married you!”

CHAPTER TEN

The train is coming to a stop. I am suddenly snapped back into the moment and glance away from the window. I had not been aware I had been staring out of it at all. Kitty has one hand on her chin, leaning forward with her elbow on the table, and the other wrapped around a can of cola.

“She was the one you called my mother after, wasn’t she? Your headmistress?”

I nod. “She was a kind lady. She was one of those people who come into your life for a short time, but leave a profound effect on your soul.”

“She was a romantic, no doubt.”

“It was your granddad she shined on more than me. If she were thirty years younger, I’d have had some competition because he was right stuck on her. But she looked after Alexander, too. She was firm with him, but she protected him. Madame Pennyweather loved those boys and everybody knew it. After she passed on, Sandy told me that our Headmistress had birthed twin sons herself. One had died at shortly after birth and the other only lived to be about five years old. It was a birth defect, both she and her husband were carriers of a rare gene, and there was a three in four chance if she ever had another child it would have the same affliction. She never tried for more. I can’t say that I blame her,” I sigh, thinking of my old Headmistress and how if I could I’d love to pop into Bennington and see her still sitting at her desk, “It was why she became a teacher instead. She taught little ones before she took the position of Headmistress at Bennington.”

“That’s very sad,” Kitty says sincerely.

“Losing a child is the worst thing you can imagine, Kitty. It’s a nightmare you live with every day for the rest of your life. Even if the child dies before you got the chance to bond with it, every once in a while you’ll wake up thinking of it in the night.” I stop speaking and press my fingers against my temples. I don’t want the conversation to go where it’s heading and so I make sure I return to the former subject, “When I found out Madame Pennyweather’s given name was Carolina, I thought it was the most beautiful name I’d ever heard. Carolina Montez was the name she was born with. I’d had no idea she was from Brazil. I really should have taken the time to know more about her when she was alive, but I doubt she would have told me much. Anyway, your granddad and I changed the spelling of your mum’s name so that people wouldn’t mispronounce it. Carolena. I just love that name.”

Kitty watches a few people pass by heading for the exit doors.

“Are we getting off here?” I ask. I’m confused for a second and then embarrassed when I realize we’re not stopped at Welshpool Station. I’ve been to Welshpool Station a million times. I hope Kitty doesn’t think anything of it.

It’s obvious she doesn’t realize I’ve just had a lost moment. “No, Gran. Not yet.”

“Am I talking too much? I’m losing track of what I’m saying,” I rub my forehead. I have a slight headache, “I’m getting old. I think I just blabber on. I don’t know what I’ve told you. I hope I haven’t embarrassed you.”

“No,” She answers in the same voice, “I love that you’re telling me. It makes me feel special that you’d share it with me.”

“Sometimes I think parents consider their children’s history to be part of theirs…like a continuation. And they think of their grandchildren as perpetual infants. I think we forget that when it comes down to it we are all a shadow of those who follow. You should know you shadow. How old are you now, Dear?”

“I’ll be thirty-three in September.”

“You don’t look a day over twenty.”

She laughs, “I wish!” Then she smiles at a vendor and helps a little girl pass between chairs. “Do you want to tell me more?”

“I think I can go on,” I absently fiddle with my wedding ring. I have never taken it off in all the years I’ve had it longer than to wash a dish or have a bath. “Where was I?”

“You left Bennington,”

“OK, OK. We left Bennington. Now what came next?”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

It had been four years since we’d left Bennington College. Oliver and I were twenty-one that spring, completing our degrees at university, both working, and completely settled into the cabin by then. We’d worked our tails off since we’d moved in making it a right and proper home. By the start of that first summer the twins had finally managed to get the walls up around the room that would be the toilet with the window up high. With the discount that Professor Walker’s son had given us, we had the well tapped and working plumbing installed. He jokingly asked us if we wanted the tub left in the front room, but we opted to move it to the new toilet instead. I picked out this beautiful little porcelain sink that looked like a shell and Oliver bought an oval shaped mirror to go above it. We’d felt it was quite an accomplishment. To us it was another testimony that there was nothing we couldn’t do.