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“Yes?”
The door creaked open and a woman, with graying hair but cheeks rosy still with the blush of youth, greeted him.
“Mrs. Fielder?”
“Yes, that's right.”
“And were you by chance Miss Lefront?”
She eyed him curiously.
“Yes, that's right.”
An involuntary sigh of relief slipped from his lips.
“My name is Edward.”
A smile accompanied her words, as she said,
“Please, come in. I've been expecting you.”
He ducked his head to enter her low door.
“You've been expecting me?”
“That's right,” she said, gesturing for him to sit in an overstuffed chair beside the fire. Her home was bathed in color and the walls hung heavy with canvas. Marie Régine's many paintings converged into one large mural, a symphony of pigment.
He felt as though he knew her from the many times he had read through her most private thoughts and so entering her house felt as though he were somewhere he had been before. Her comment though had puzzled him and upon seeing this, she said,
“She told me.” Her eyes traveled from Edward to the portrait of the painted lady.
“I don't understand.”
Her eyes narrowed in puzzlement.
“Oh? I was certain that you came because you know her secrets, as I do.”
He hesitated for a moment, as a strange feeling of freedom overcame him. For the first time, he acknowledged to another,
“Yes, she speaks— spoke to me.”
“I knew she did,” Marie Régine said, with a slow and steady smile.
“You mean, because she spoke to you, you knew that she must have to me as well,” he said, trying to clarify.
She looked at him, almost piercingly so.
“I mean,” she said, “that you cast yourself into her.”
Edward shifted in his chair.
“Cast myself?”
“Is it possible,” Marie Régine said, sitting forward and leaning into Edward, “That you do not know about this? Tell me please, what is your experience of being spoken to?”
He shifted, feeling once again the oddity of being able to freely speak about what he had hidden from all.
“If something reflective— glass, metal— was held to her, she would convey my thoughts, my feelings, often that buried deepest which I did not wish to confront.”
She nodded, listening intently to his words.
“And did you ever use her to deliver a message to another?”
His look of confusion provided the answer she sought.
“The painting was presented to me, as you know by a friend, but what you do not know is that this man, though not my father, loved my mother. They discovered the painting as children and used it to send messages to each other when they were apart. My sister and I did the same.”
He listened carefully, appreciative that she did not speak as softly as many did so that he did not have to ask her to repeat what she said. Understanding now what she meant by “the woman who delivers messages”, he sat back and said,
“If she were as important to you as all of this and if you thought so fondly of her, then why did you let her go? In your writing I read of how you were moving to England, but you gave no indication that you were not taking her with you and I found her in my house in England, so what happened to separate you?”
“Some of my goods became lost when we moved to England. I was told later that they were sold to an elderly couple, who unknowingly purchased them from the thief who masqueraded as a salesman. I searched extensively for her but could find nothing until I heard that a young American, you, planned to open an antique shop. I hoped against hope that I might find her and I did.”
He nodded at her slowly,
“Do you think,” he said, “that it is possible that when a message seemed especially harsh or not to fit with something inside of me that it was a message from you?”
Her interest piqued, she sat forward and grasped his hand,
“You experienced things that felt unnatural for you to know?”
He nodded.
“My goodness, this is quite serious.”
“What is it?”
“Edward, when my search produced nothing after a year, I put her out of my mind. I was convinced that her time with me was finished. It was only on a nostalgic whim that I came to you when I heard about you. I see now why I did, though. You had no knowledge of this, but I did and so I had to tell you. Edward, I think someone else is trapped inside the painting.”
He sat back heavily from the gravity of what she said.
“You think someone else knows her secrets and is trying to speak through her? But the messages have been so unclear.”
“Then Edward, that is the most extreme of all. Someone without a voice, who has been trapped by something, is trying to find himself again through the painting.”
She stood and unfastened the painting from the wall. Hugging the frame to her chest, she handed the painting back to Edward.
“I will keep my voice separate and out of the painting. Only you can discern what is your voice and what belongs to the other. Good luck. May God be with you in your work,” she said as he stepped away from Marie Régine Lefront, with the painted lady resting safely against his heart.
He returned to his house, carried by the wind of exhilarated purpose.
“Edward! Oh Edward!” Agnes said, racing toward him, waving something in her hand as he approached the house.
He looked up, so absorbed in the world of the painting, that he was startled by her presence.
“Yes? What is it?” he asked, seeing her happiness radiating like rays of sunshine.
“John! He's safe! He's in London! He was wounded but the doctors say he's going to be just fine. George and I are leaving at once to be with him. We should be home within the next week or two.”
“Oh Agnes! That's wonderful,” he said, putting his arm around her for a hug.
“Goodbye Edward. Take care of yourself. We shall all be together soon,” she said. With a kiss on the cheek, she hurried down the lane, nearly skipping.
A burden of sorrow removed at the joyous news of his cousin, he turned his attention fully to the painted lady as he stepped inside. He sat in the room where she had first spoken to him, where he had cursed her existence and where now he hoped to discover the truth. As he looked into her lovingly painted eyes, he greeted her with all the familiarity of a confidant and the fondness of a dear friend. She had been his accomplice, his motivation, his desperation, his frustration and his raison d'être. And now, he would set her free from whoever was entrapped inside. He felt he owed it to her, after all they had been through together.
He held a glass to her, as he had done so often before, and his hand trembled at the thought of what he was doing.
“I missed you,” he said, sincerely to her.
“Everything will be fine now. Just remember— I know what the truth is,” she said.
He struggled to separate his voice from the other, as he was now certain that Marie Régine had been right.
“Remember, remember, in the meadow.”
“Lady Pemblebrooke is already free,” he said, remembering the last time the meadow had been spoken of.
“You don't have to prove yourself anymore. You've done it.” A sense of revelation came to him at the words. They were his deep truth that was at last set free.
“Concentrate,” he told himself, feeling the strength of the belief in himself required to complete what he set out to do.
“Remember, remember me,” the voice said.
Edward stared harder at her.
“Remember— yes, that's it— remember.” Her voice grew fainter, a hushed whisper.
“No, come back,” Edward said, “don't leave me.”
As he spoke the words, James did not fill his mind haunting his confidence. Edward had been a good friend; he had done what he could. He was free of it. All that grasped him now was the painting and he feared that she would abandon him.
A knock at the door startled Edward. He set down the glass in front of the painting and left to answer it.
“Clara, hello, come in, please,” Edward said, opening the door to her.
“I wanted to thank you. Agnes said that somehow you figured out that Lady Pemblebrooke was in the meadow. I don't know how you could have known that, since only Frederick did— well, and I heard him say it, the night they were kidnapped, after I tucked Albert back into bed, when he awoke crying. Unfortunately, my memory failed me and I couldn't remember that night. The doctor says my memory may have suffered more, because of the trauma of being accused. Anyway, thank you for setting me free.”
“Clara,” he said, suddenly struck by what she had said, “would you mind looking at something for me?”
She shook her head.
“No, of course not. What is it?” He led her into the room where the painting rested. Upon seeing it, she clapped her hands together in delight.
“Edward, my grandparents had a painting just like this in their home when I was young. I have been remembering so much more lately.” She knelt, a smile filling her face, beside the painting. He lowered himself to join her. Looking into the painted lady, with the glass in front of him, he heard the painting say,
“I remember.”
He looked to Clara who had no reflection before her, but felt a tingle cover his skin, which only heightened as she said,
“I've been trying so hard to remember. Just before the accident, in Silvertown, I was thinking of my grandparents' house and this very painting and now here I am remembering it all. Isn't it marvelous?” Her eyes were so full of purity and joy, without any hint of having heard the words, that he was certain he was the only one who had been in the shadow of reflection.
Edward turned to Clara, took her hand and said,
“It no longer speaks my heart. You do. But, I suppose you always have.” She tilted her head to the side, uncertain of his words but warmed by them, and smiled. Despite all they had learned, neither knew that centuries earlier a tear of compassion and love had changed their lives. Now, Edward felt no malice at the thought of being read. The seed of fulfillment, sown in the bleakest soils of war-ravaged land and his discontented soul, had supplanted it and bloomed in perfect completion.