Sisterchicks Go Brit! (5 page)

“I’m Liz.” I extended my hand. “This is Kellie.”

“Queen Elizabeth.” Virgil came up behind us with Opal’s suitcase.

Rose ignored him. She grasped just my fingers in a dainty, ladylike handshake and repeated the gesture with Kellie. “Do come in. You must be—”

“Chilled to the bone, I should say,” Opal answered for us, stepping over the threshold.

“Do you need help with the rest of the luggage, Virgil?” Kellie asked.

“Oh, yes. Of course,” Rose answered for him, waving us on our way back to the car. Virgil was already halfway there.

The sisters went inside and closed the door. Kellie and I were left standing on the Go Away mat.

Kellie laughed, and I was right there with her.

“Twins!” Kellie said as we headed back to the car. “Have you ever seen two such identical twins? I thought I was seeing double. Is that one of the effects of jet lag?”

“I have no idea. But I will tell you this whole day is starting to feel like something out of
Alice in Wonderland
. I think you and I have tumbled down a peculiar sort of rabbit hole.”

We stopped at the back of the car. Before reaching for the last of the luggage, Kellie and I both looked around as if we had shared the same thought at the same moment.

“Where’s Virgil?” we said in unison.

Kellie laughed again. “Now look who’s acting like twins!”

Neither Virgil nor Boswald was anywhere to be seen. Kellie checked the front seat of the car. “The keys aren’t in the ignition. Maybe he took Boswald for a walk.”

I lowered my voice and leaned close. “Maybe he felt slighted by Opal’s response to his gallant effort to greet her at the airport and went straight home with Boswald.”

“Or to the nearest pub,” Kellie whispered.

We giggled again. “I’m starting to think jet lag brings on an insatiable desire to laugh a lot.”

“I think you’re right, Liz. Let’s lug these suitcases into the house before we’re too chilled. It’s cold out here.”

I almost made it to the front door before feeling the urge to laugh again. This time the desire was brought on by the silly doormat.

Kellie seemed to have missed it and asked as she stepped inside, “What do you think? Should we leave the luggage here in the entry?”

To our left was a narrow flight of hardwood stairs. We could
hear Opal’s and Rose’s muffled voices finishing each other’s sentences from a room around the corner.

“Opal?” Kellie called softly.

“We’re back here, in the breakfast room.”

“Where would you like us to put your luggage?”

I whispered, “Please, oh please don’t say upstairs.”

“Leave them right where you are for the time being, and—”

“Come join us,” Rose concluded.

Kellie and I stepped around the corner of the small entry and entered a sitting room. A small sofa and a leather chair flanked a dark wood coffee table with stacks of books and a potted violet on it. The window that looked out on the street had an inlaid section of stained glass in a triangular pattern of yellows, blues, and greens. Even with the dense clouds overhead, the light through the stained glass offered the sitting room a magical touch.

A hobbit-sized hearth occupied the center of the far wall and was canopied by a mantel that appeared to have acorns and leaves intricately carved into the wood.

“Oh, Lizzie, look at the rug.” Kellie’s face expressed admiration. “Morris-inspired, I’m sure of it. It’s gorgeous.”

The rectangular rug was a blend of greens and blues with a repeating pattern of beige accented by touches of red tones. It was pretty. Pretty old and faded, but it had a pleasing pattern.

Kellie bent down to touch the threads and took a closer look at the rug. “Wow, this is really something. It looks old enough to be inspired by the original.”

“Original what?”

“The original William Morris pattern Strawberry Thief. It was one of his most successful designs.”

I took a closer look and realized the repeating beige in the pattern was actually well-defined birds, and the red touches were strawberries. Interlaced around them were vines and flowers in rounded shapes. Even though the rug was faded, the design seemed dimensional.

“It is gorgeous,” I said.

“Morris was a genius. He coaxed Britain to move away from those eighteenth-century heavy velvets and ornate chairs and bring the simple beauty of the outdoors into the home. I know I’ve talked about him before. He’s one of the Pre-Raphaelites who launched the Arts and Crafts movement more than 150 years ago.”

My expression must have conveyed how impressed I was and at the same time how lost I was. Kellie’s hobby was reading up on decorators and collecting books on their various styles. If she had mentioned this British designer to me, I didn’t remember him.

“William Morris was the one who said, ‘Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful.’ ”

“Oh, okay. Sure. I’ve heard you quote that before. I love that quote.”

“Well.” Kellie made a sweeping gesture toward the rug. “Useful and beautiful.”

“And apparently enduring if he made this rug 150 years ago.”

“His firm might have made this rug,” Kellie said. “Or a rug maker who used his designs. But Morris couldn’t have made this exact rug. If he had, it would be in a museum.”

I had no idea this man was so famous. It made me wish I had hunted and gathered some information on Morris before we left. I would love to see Kellie’s face if she could view some of his original work in one of the many museums in London.

“Have you lost your way?” Opal called out.

“We’re in here!” Rose added. “Keep coming.”

I reached for the handle on the closed door at the end of the small sitting room. On the other side of the door, Opal and Rose were seated at a round table in a square room painted sunshine yellow with white trim. It was easy to see now where Opal’s inspiration for the colors in her apartment had come from. High windows in the breakfast room brought in light that seemed to suit the large fern in the corner just fine.

“Close the door behind—” Rose said.

“To keep the heat in,” Opal finished. “Tea?”

“No, thank you,” I answered for both of us. “We need to be on our way to the hotel.”

Rose and Opal looked surprised. “But it’s nearly four,” Rose said. “I have some sandwiches prepared. Nothing fancy—”

“Minced ham is fancy enough,” Opal added.

“Yes, of course. Minced ham. Opal’s favorite. And the scones are nearly ready from the oven.”

Kellie looked as if the chance to pause for tea was a great idea. I reminded myself about our agreement to let the days come at their own pace and to stop for a proper spot of tea.

I smiled and took the seat offered to me. London and my beloved Big Ben would still be there two hours from now. We could see a play tomorrow night or the next night or both nights if we wanted. Kellie and I were being invited to “take tea” in a cozy cottage in an English village with two engaging women. Why wouldn’t we stay for such an opportunity?

As Kellie lowered herself into the chair next to Opal, I also lowered my expectations of what Kellie and I needed to accomplish that day. When Charles Dickens lived in this fine country he wrote about “great expectations.” I was preparing to write the first chapter of Kellie’s and my British story and entitle it “Realistic, Reduced, Willing-to-Get-Sidetracked, Yet Nonetheless Delightful Expectations.”

With that adjustment in place, I found it much easier to agree with Kellie when she commented on the beautiful tablecloth. It was a quality linen fabric with a pattern in bright blues and yellows. The teakettle was an electric one with a fat cord attached to the wall by a large, round plug. The teacups waiting for us were in the Spode blue Italian pattern, the same china Opal used to serve us at her apartment in Florida. I no longer felt a little silly, as if we were sitting down to a little-girl tea party. I felt very grown-up and honored to be at this table.

Kellie began the conversation by commenting on the rug as well as other design features she admired in Rose’s charming cottage.

Rose seemed impressed with Kellie’s familiarity with Morris and the Arts and Crafts movement. She said the rug had been in the family for as long as they could remember. Opal said it had always been a favorite of hers too.

“Do either of you know of a museum where we might see some of Morris’s designs?” I asked.

Rose and Opal spoke at once, overlapping each other.

“Kelmscott Manor, of course,” Rose said. “Although I don’t know if they offer tours every day, and it’s not in London.”

“Neither is the Red House,” Opal added.

“Well, the V and A, of course,” Rose concluded.

Opal nodded and sipped her tea.

“And that’s a museum?” The name wasn’t ringing a bell. The British Museum showed up in all the lists of recommended tourist sights, as did the Tate Britain Gallery, Madame Tussauds Museum of Waxworks, and, of course, the National Portrait Gallery. I hated asking what the V and A was, but after all, I was a tourist. I still had my passport in a pouch tucked under my clothing to prove it.

“Why, the Victoria and Albert,” Rose said.

I made a note and decided I would gather more information from our hotel concierge on the subject.

Within the first five minutes of sitting at Rose’s table in that warm and cheery breakfast room, I felt my feet thaw, along with the rest of me. The tea served was more than just a beverage; it was a defroster. An elixir that brought me into the present.

I lifted the china teacup to my lips, and my smile curled around the smooth rim. For a decaf-grande-triple-nonfat-latte-in-a-to-go-cup sort of woman, I was curiously finding myself being won over to the wonder of tea. Or perhaps it was the ceremony of sitting down and “taking tea.” Here we were, on the other side of the world, yet it didn’t seem unusual or out of place for the four of us women to be together like this, sipping tea and chatting. Was this elemental camaraderie true of women the world over? Around such a table, how could we not be of one heart?

Rose pushed away from the table with some difficulty and exited through a swinging door that led, I assumed, into the kitchen. I leaned toward Opal and said, “What happened to Virgil?”

“No one seems to know. He’s been that way ever since his wife passed on some years ago.”

“No, I mean, where did he go?”

“Oh. Home, no doubt. He’ll be back. He always comes back.”

R
ose returned to the sunroom
just then with a plate of the warm scones. “You really must try these with some of the lemon curd.” She pointed to a small bowl, which contained pale yellow jam.

Kellie and I both tried the lemon curd and said, “Delicious!” at the same time. We gave each other “twin” looks and tried not to tumble into a fit of laughter.

Rose seemed pleased with our assessment and settled back into polite conversation, discussing our flight and the traffic we’d encountered leaving Heathrow.

The thin sunlight through the high windows was waning. In the twilight that now hushed the breakfast room, the pull of slumber became overpowering. I wondered if Kellie was feeling the same draw. A short nap sounded so good right then.

When the teapot was emptied, Kellie glanced at me, and I knew it was time for us to be on our way.

Just as Tolkien had invented an elfin language in his Lord of the Rings novels, Kellie and I had developed an entire code of facial movements. Over the years we found we could communicate with each other when no one else knew what our pursed lips or tilted head meant.

I gave Kellie a “yes, let’s get going” dip of the chin and tried to think of how to insert the “we must be on our way” line into the conversation. I started with, “Would you like us to carry your luggage to your room, Opal?”

“She’s staying downstairs with me,” Rose said. “The guest room upstairs is ready for the two of you.”

“Oh, we’re not staying,” I said. “Did Opal not tell you? We’re going on to London this evening. We have hotel reservations.”

Rose shook her head with clear disapproval. “Hotels are so expensive, don’t you think? I was just reading in the paper the other day that London is one of the most expensive cities in the world for hotel accommodations. Hong Kong was on the list as well. Can you imagine that?”

“We have a very good, discounted rate,” Kellie said. “My husband is employed by a major hotel chain.”

“Nevertheless, you might want to reconsider staying here with us.”

“If only for this first night,” Opal added. “You must be weary.”

Of course we were weary. But we had a lot of plans for the week, and none of them included lingering in Olney.

“You certainly won’t be able to see much of London by the time you get there this evening,” Rose said.

I knew I was too tired to be responsible for any decisions at that point. Kellie looked like she was succumbing to Rose’s and Opal’s mesmerizing words as well.

“You’ve gone to all the trouble of bringing in your bags already,” Opal said.

“And you’ve come on such a long journey …”

Kellie and I gave each other a look that said, “Well?”