The Secrets of Water

by Wendy Nelson-Sinclair

  “Your doctor ordered you to rest,” Sebastian insisted as Hazel continued to munch away. “For once in your life, you should do what you’re told.”

  “And that is just what I am going to do. I am going to rest but I am going to play cards while I do it.”

  Everyone knew not to push Hazel further. Lizzie was well aware that Hazel’s patience only reached so far and further pushing would cause her to snap.

  “Fine, but if you hurt yourself, I won’t come and get you.” Sebastian threatened lightly but even he knew it was futile.

  “Yes, you will. It’s not in your nature to neglect those you love.”

  The trio finished eating in companionable silence. As Lizzie washed the dishes and Sebastian dried, Hazel’s ride pulled up into the drive and honked. Getting up from her seat, she deftly gave them each a hug and a kiss goodbye and headed out the door with a promise to see them later. Once the dishes were clean, wiped, and put away, Sebastian offered to drive Lizzie to meet up with Jacobs.

  “Nana’s car is just sitting there, unused with a full tank of petrol,” Sebastian attempted to convince Lizzie. “And taxis are expensive. Besides, if you say yes, I can give you a tour of the countryside. And, if there’s time after, maybe we can stop by Blackwell Farm and have a look around?”

  The offer to tour Edith Blackwell’s home was too tempting for Lizzie to resist. Minutes later, she found herself in Hazel’s Audi, flying across the Lake Country.

  As they drove, Sebastian chatted just like he did before all the awfulness between them occurred. He told her about his job, how he once loved it, but had grown to hate it more and more. Sebastian spoke about the battle of egos within the Math Department and because of the ever-growing drama, he was no longer happy working there.

  “But you worked really hard for that position, Sebastian,” Lizzie said, facing him while he kept his eyes focused on the road ahead. “You can’t just quit and let them run you off. You owe it to yourself, the school, and your students to take a stand. If you do and nothing changes, then you can move on knowing that you tried to make a difference,” she encouraged him, feeling as if it was Virginia’s words being channeled out of her mouth. “But if it does change, you won’t have thrown away a great opportunity.”

  “That sounds like something that Virginia would say,” he echoed her own thoughts and made a promise that he would give it some further contemplation.

  They continued to drive until Sebastian turned in to a car park and stopped in front of a small, white-washed building with a dense, thatched roof.

  “This is the pub where Andy and I had our first legal beer,” Sebastian announced as exited the car and came around to let Lizzie out. Without thinking, Lizzie opened the door, oblivious to Sebastian’s attempt at chivalry.

  “This looks cozy,” Lizzie said as she sucked in the same homey vibe that the Whitworth’s establishment emanated. “But don’t you think it’s a little early for a beer?”

  “Ah, that’s the reason why I brought you here first. This isn’t a pub anymore.” Sebastian held up a finger to emphasize his point. “The Drunken Goat is now locally known as The Little Teapot Tea Shop. Nana’s bridge partner, Dorothy, bought the building when the former owner died. Since Dorothy is a strict teetotaler, she reopened the place as a tea and sweet shop. Nobody thought the idea would take. Everyone was betting that she’d be closed within six months, but it’s proved to be immensely popular with the tourists and is still going strong six years later.”

  “How wonderful,” Lizzie chimed as they made the short walk to the front door. “Although that still doesn’t explain why you brought me here. I’m not one for a lot of sweets and we could have had tea back at the house.”

  “Ah, but you don’t know the history of this building,” Sebastian said as his mouth curved into a self-satisfied smile. “Before this was a teashop and pub, it was the home of Hannah Sargent.”

  Lizzie’s eyes bugged out of her head. Captivated, she stood gawking at the building’s façade for several seconds. “Edith’s housekeeper?” she gasped, startled and thrilled at the same time. Once she recovered herself, she took in the small building once more with fresh eyes.

  The former farmhouse was whitewashed, topped with a freshly thatched roof, and inviting windows that bespoke of the former home’s soul. Lizzie savored standing before it, dreaming of Hannah Sargent and the home she shared with her daughter.

  “The very same. Her brother-in-law, Mr. Graham Brown, Edith’s gardener and groundsman, lived just over there. In that old house, the one that’s been converted into a petrol station.” Sebastian pointed a to a structure located a few hundred feet down the road. Lizzie spotted the small, similarly built structure with flashing neon lights that marred its historic beauty. A pang seized her knowing that such rich history now peddled petrol, Coca-Cola’s, and Mars bars.

  “Thank you, Sebastian,” Lizzie said happily, utterly delighted at the thoughtfulness behind his surprise. “I had no idea. It was very considerate of you to bring me here.”

  “Think nothing of it,” he beamed. “You’d do it for me.” Sebastian’s smile widened as he stepped forward and opened the door, allowing Lizzie to head in first.

  After sipping matching cups of Darjeeling tea and sharing a piece of Turtle Cheesecake, Sebastian drove Lizzie to the Museum. As they pulled into the carpark, Sebastian surprised her by asking if he could join her.

  “A warm museum is much preferable to a cold car,” he joked as they made their way towards the front doors.

  “Sebastian, I think you are the only person in the world to ever describe a museum as being ‘warm’,” Lizzie laughed heartily as they walked through the spotless glass doors.

  ************

  “The lecture will still be another half-hour,” a guide stated after Lizzie asked when it was slated to end. “It started late, and the director has agreed to allow Dr. Trelawney to have the full hour. Mr. Jacobs will be out when she’s done.”

  Lizzie thanked the slender young man and headed back to the main exhibit hall to wait it out. After a brief search, Lizzie found Sebastian standing before an unexpected surprise. Face radiant with joy, Lizzie read the sign announcing the Edith Blackwell wing.

  “When did they do this?” Her eyes widened with fascination. Lizzie stood astounded as she stole a peek over Sebastian’s shoulder, eager to get in.

  “The groundbreaking came just after Nana left and Trelawney was forced out,” Sebastian explained as he flashed two entry tickets. Lizzie tried not to squeal as Sebastian stepped aside, allowing her to go first. Following close behind, Sebastian heard Lizzie’s wondrous gasp as they came to stand before the only known photo of Edith Blackwell. “The new director invited Katherine Sargent to assist with the set up. Katherine even reached out to Nana for advice on how to display a few of the pieces. It took several years to get it up and running,” he added but Lizzie barely heard him.

  “I forgot that she knew Katherine,” Lizzie said, awed by what surrounded her and particularly captivated by Edith’s portrait.

  As many times as Lizzie had seen her favorite author’s image printed on the backs of her novels or inside her teacher’s textbook, she’d never realized just how much she and Edith favored one another. The only differences between the two women was that Edith’s hair was as black as a raven’s wing with deep, chocolate eyes and Lizzie’s hair was auburn, and her eyes were like the sky just before a storm, an almost exact copy of her mother.

  “Did you ever notice that you look like her?” Sebastian echoed her thoughts as they stood gazing up at the portrait.

  “Not until now,” Lizzie answered, unable to pull herself away. “It never dawned on me, but we do. I look a lot like her. In fact, now that I see her, I find it uncanny because she looks just like my mother,” Lizzie said softly as stared into the matte face before her.

  “Maybe it’s like people and their dogs. That after a while, they start to look like one another. Maybe it’s the same with people and w
riters that they’ve read over and over since their teens,” Sebastian teased her lightly.

  “Maybe. It’s odd though, isn’t it?” Lizzie added before she forced herself to move on.

  Slowly, with Sebastian flanking her side, Lizzie methodically worked her way through the exhibit. She stopped at each glass case, taking a moment to admire Edith’s former possessions. Her silver writing set. A typewriter that she was rumored to have never used. Her clothing, even an amber hair comb. Lizzie’s favorite item was Edith’s silver hairbrush with an elegant mother-of-pearl inlay.

  “A gift from a friend,” Lizzie read aloud. She briefly remembered a surviving diary entry she’d once catalogued. A single, jagged page that had once been part of a larger collection. “She wrote about how she would never let it out of her sight. Another diary mentioned it again six months later after it disappeared. Did you know that they found it under a floorboard in one of the unused rooms when we were recovering items from the estate?” Lizzie asked and Sebastian shook his head that he hadn’t. “I don’t understand how something that she claimed to love ended up in such an unusual spot?”

  “Maybe her depression caused her to do strange things?” Sebastian offered an explanation. “Or maybe someone was pissed at her and wanted to punish her?” he added. An ice-cold shiver ran down the length of Lizzie’s spine as Sebastian said the last part.

  “Taking someone’s hairbrush doesn’t make sense,” Lizzie argued as she tried to cast off the shiver and the sense of dread that followed on its tail. “Besides, not even Edith would have resorted to such strange behavior.”

  Abandoning the subject, they continued on. Moving past several more displays, Lizzie and Sebastian came upon the newest portion of the exhibit hall. The portion that had just opened weeks before. On the back wall, a mural of Blackwell Farm stretched across the entire length, looking just as it had when Edith was still alive. On the flanking side, was a large placard that immediately caught one’s attention.

  “I didn’t know that she opened her house as an artist colony,” Lizzie said, surprised as she caught up on the unknown portion of the estate’s history.

  “Nana said that they found some letters tucked under the bottom lining of a trunk a few months back. Letters written by Edith’s friend, Adelide, discussing it. According to Nana, they were dated a year or two after Adelide came to live with Edith. Edith wrote of how Adelide immediately took control of the house, freeing Edith up and giving her more time to write. Adelide was the one to fill it with artists, writers, poets, musicians, physicists, botanists, chemists—all those that placed education, higher learning, and progress over wealth and status.”

  “It says that Elspeth Ehlers, the Suffragist poet, once stayed here along with her husband, Jonathan Hiboldt. He was a famed botanist.” Lizzie’s eyes lit up as the connection revealed itself. “Sebastian, that’s it! Elspeth Ehlers. Ellie. That’s who Edith wrote the letters to! In the second letter, Edith wishes that Ellie and her husband, Jonathan, would come back to help her with a problem. Elspeth Ehlers is her friend! She’s Ellie!” Lizzie’s head swirled with delight. To see yet another piece of information confirming what she suspected left her breathless with delight.

  “And that might not be all,” Sebastian added as he pointed towards the bottom of the list. “Do you see anything of note down there? Towards the bottom.” He stepped back as Lizzie leaned in for a closer look. She read through the names twice before straightening herself up and shooting Sebastian a confused look.

  “No. Is there something that I’m missing?”

  Giving her a single nod, Sebastian leaned in and pointed to a single name towards the bottom of the list.

  “Arthur Price.” His finger rested just beside the famous painter’s name. “Are you familiar with him or his work?”

  “Only that his painting of the Vestal Virgins was the target of those thieves that tried to break into the museum a while back.”

  “Arthur Price, was also known for his obsession with mythology, specifically Greek mythology. He collaborated on a series of paintings with Edward Martin Murray from 1907 to 1908. Nana wrote her dissertation on it. One of the paintings that they worked together on was the Vestal Virgins.”

  Lizzie did a double take, mouth hanging open with astonishment. “You’re kidding me, right?” Sebastian shook his head.

  “Nope. When we’re done here, we’ll go look at it. My mother showed it to me the year before she died. I distinctly remember how she pointed out their initials down at the bottom. Murray’s are so faded that they are hard to see but given the right light, one can still see them.” Lizzie stood unmoving as if she were at the edge of a great precipice and that any movement would send her tumbling forward. “Liz, are you alright?” Sebastian’s hand was suddenly on her back, resting over her right shoulder blade. The heat from his skin radiated through the fabric of her blouse and warmed the skin beneath it.

  “I’m fine,” she said, savoring the sensation as her mind reeled with possibilities. “Everything is just becoming all too real.”

  “Lizzie!” Dr. Marc Jacobs suddenly boomed behind them. Both Lizzie and Sebastian spun on their heels to find Jacobs steadily walking towards them, a pleasant grin stretched across his face. “Lizzie, it’s good to see you.” Jacobs shook her hand as he reached them but did not extend the courtesy to Sebastian. Clearly, he was still peeved over the debacle at the Christmas party and wasn’t about to let the other man forget it.

  “Hello, Jacobs,” Lizzie said, pulling her hand back once Jacobs let it go.

  “I have to say that I am surprised that you’re here, but if what you said in your email is true, you’ve done the right thing by coming. One can never trust couriers these days. Abigail Potter, the medieval literature specialist, was just saying that a letter of Christopher Marlowe’s recently disappeared while en route to the British Museum. When the authorities tracked down the carrier, the young man said that a pair of thugs hit him over the head and stole the bag he was carrying.”

  “That’s awful,” Lizzie replied, grimacing at the loss of such a precious artifact.

  “That sounds a lot like Allen Chang and the Keats letter that disappeared. The one that Dr. Trelawney claimed to have found and subsequently, might I add, advantageously cashed in on,” Sebastian said further, mirroring his grandmother’s beliefs.

  “It’s a giant headache, I can tell you that,” Jacobs ignored Sebastian’s remark and returning his focus back to Lizzie. “About what you’ve found, do you think the items in question are authentic?”

  “The paper is old and fragile, and the handwriting is definitely Edith’s. I read enough of her correspondence that I’d be able to recognize it while wearing a blindfold,” Lizzie stated confidently, surer of herself than she had been in a long time.

  “Where is it now? Did you bring it with you?” Jacobs looked for a carrying case as Lizzie shook her head no.

  “Since I was out running other errands, I didn’t want to risk it getting stolen,” Lizzie said offered as an excuse instead of telling Jacobs the full truth. “All of it is in a safe location, though. No one can get to it.”

  “And you mentioned that there was something else. Something about a note that led you to a cemetery?”

  “Copp’s Hill, to be exact. There was a notecard with instructions tucked in with the second letter. When I went, I discovered a third manila envelope on the grave of Edward Martin Murray. Inside was the lost half of The Secrets of Water by Edith Blackwell.” Jacob’s eyes widened to the point that they resembled large, coffee-filled saucers.

  “Lizzie, that is fantastic!” Jacobs practically jumped with joy. “If we can authenticate it, we will be rewriting history!” Jacobs cheered ecstatically, barely able to contain his excitement.

  “That’s not all,” Lizzie said as she raised a finger and pulled out her phone. Unlocking the screen, she flipped through her pictures until she found what she was looking for. “I took this just after I got back to my car after going to t
he cemetery. It’s a shot of an amended title page with a completely different dedication.” She held her phone up for both men to see.

  “To E.M.M—” Jacobs read but stopped in mid-sentence. “Wait! Lizzie, did you say that you found this on Edward Martin Murray’s grave?”

  “I did.”

  “Holy shit,” Jacobs snatched her phone from her hands and read the dedication several times before handing it back. “Meet me here tomorrow morning. Bring the manuscript and the letters with you. I’ll ask Martin Beemer and Katherine Sargent to come and help authenticate the findings. Since you’re the one that discovered them, it’s only right that you work with the team.” Jacobs voice rose wondrously as if on the verge of a transformative religious experience. For a moment, Lizzie believed he might hug her, or even kiss her. The thought rolled her belly with revulsion, but she shook it off.

  “Jacobs.” A silky voice with a crisp English accent rose seductively from behind Lizzie’s boss. “There you are! I wanted to discuss that idea I had about Christopher Marlowe.” Lizzie glanced over his shoulder as Dr. Linda Trelawney approached them, reminiscent of a cat stalking its prey. Cautiously, she nudged Sebastian with her elbow. Sebastian, who’d been rereading the list of notables, turned and instantly recognized the tall, slender woman. Lizzie felt a chill she’d never noticed before as the woman entered the room, giving credence to Sebastian’s assertion that Dr. Trelawney was the coldest woman he’d ever met.

  “Thank goodness Nana is not here,” he whispered close to Lizzie’s ear. “She’d have her pinned to the floor, beating her with her cast.” Lizzie swallowed a laugh, trying her hardest to remain professional.

  “You left so quickly after the lecture. In addition to the topic of Marlowe, I also wanted to speak to you about some ideas I have to improve the Blackwell exhibit. Modern ideas…” Dr. Trelawney’s cool, collected demeanor was on full display. It triggered Lizzie’s memories of her internship and how, when everyone else was freaking about a lost crate of Edith’s correspondence, Dr. Trelawney never once broke a sweat. A crate that to Lizzie’s knowledge, was recovered due to an all-too convenient tip regarding an abandoned house just months after Lizzie left. A tip that came right on the heels of Trelawney being forced out.