Part 5

Chapter 15

All Diane could think of was a soap opera as the private detective laid out photos of a man and woman. The Eleanor Browne presented to her could not be her daughter. There had to be some mistake. 

Graham had in fact found a woman named Eleanor Browne. He had photographs of her taken with a mysterious man in a pub in a questionable part of London. The man turned out to be an earl, married to another woman. 

Graham brought photographs, copies of newspaper clippings and a sad story filled with scandal. Sitting in the hotel lobby, Diane and Robin ignored the bustle around them as they studied those photographs. They were dark and a little grainy but Diane was sure this couldn’t be Eleanor. Her hair was black and quite short, her daughter would never part with her long blonde hair. This woman wore little brown-framed glasses that made her look studious. The smile wasn’t quite right, either. It was hard to see her features clearly

But it was the story that had Diane worried. Graham lit a cigarette before telling her all the details. 

He’d found a news story in an old London Times from 1992. A wedding announcement detailed the arrangements for the marriage of Eleanor Browne, who was described as “a commoner,” and Lord Edward Granby, a cousin of the queen, “an elderly cousin of the queen,” Graham noted with an eyebrow raised. It was a lavish affair, held at a country castle outside of Oxford. The newly-married couple were living — and partying — in London. 

Then Graham had found a divorce decree. The scandal was splashed across the tabloids, which had speculated about adultery and possible criminal activity. The marriage had lasted only a year. The former Mrs. Granby was said to have moved to Paris. 

Society columns had mentioned her several times but Graham said he hadn’t been able to find the woman herself until yesterday’s newspapers had mentioned her possible connection to Earl Richard Collins. A friend of a friend had seen the two together that same day.

The coincidence was astounding. Graham had hurried to the hotel where they were said to be staying and followed them to the pub. He was rather proud of those pictures, he said.

“But I don’t think this is Eleanor,” said Diane shaking her head.

“I’m certain it is,” Graham protested, crushing the cigarette in an ashtray. 

“I’m sure it is a woman named Eleanor but there must be another Eleanor Browne living in London.”

“Very well, madam,” he said, rising and pulling on his overcoat. 

“You’ll keep looking for her?”

“I’ll see if I can find anything else.”

Diane wasn’t enjoying her stay in London. Robin could tell she was deeply troubled by the day’s activities. Her mother nearly scowled as she picked up the photos the private investigator had left on the small round table and started to throw them in a wastebasket. “No, Mother,” said Robin, reaching for the pictures. “I want to look at them again.”

Chapter 16

Robin was late. Shadows were growing longer as the street lamps began to glow. She reproached herself for not catching a cab but she hadn’t realized how big Hyde Park was. It was more beautiful than St. James’s Park and she’d loved walking through that park. But around the edges of Hyde Park, she caught glimpses of  big houses, castles, really. At least, she thought they looked splendid. The lake had attracted geese and ducks and groups of men and little boys throwing rocks and tending to small sailboats. She had sat on a bench to watch them for a while. She had gotten to the entrance when that woman got up on the soapbox at Speaker’s Corner to rail about injustice in Africa, Robin couldn’t help herself. She felt compelled to listen. It wasn’t until she began walking back to the hotel that she realized she was at the wrong entrance. She was on the wrong street and was much farther away than she had realized. Now she would be late and Diane wasn’t one to be kept waiting.

“So sorry, Mother,’ Robin apologized when she saw Diane waiting on a settee in the lobby. Diane hadn’t seen her but had been studying a small notebook. 

“We’ll have to hurry. We have only a little while before we’re supposed to meet that private investigator.” Robin didn’t think her mother was angry. Instead, she noticed, her mother seemed to have a new sense of purpose. 

“And then the tea room. I’ve been looking forward to going to a proper tea,” Diane added. “That taxi driver said it was worth the visit.”

“If Princess Di liked it,” Robin began, knowing her mother’s adoration of the late royal. 

Robin was growing to like the area around their hotel. She was particularly fond of the little parks that seemed to be on every street. She peeked through the gate to one and noticed a window just up the street.

Lights were blazing inside so that Robin could see all the people gathering inside. Many were dressed in black and carried glasses of wine as they peered at the walls. Oh, of course, she thought, a gallery opening. A gallery opening! Robin stopped and looked. Why hadn’t she been looking for her sister in the galleries around London? She had found information about a gallery the very week she had learned her sister could still be alive. She had even found an address. Oh, what was its name? Where was it?

“Robin? What are you looking at?” Diane had realized she was walking alone and came back looking for her daughter.

“How could I have been so stupid?”

“Stupid? How, Robin?”

“We should be looking for Eleanor in the galleries,” she said and told her mother about finding a note about an exhibit of Eleanor’s photographs.

“There has been so much to look for,” Diane said, trying to soothe her daughter. “We can only look in one place at a time. Tomorrow we’ll look for your gallery. Now let’s go to tea. I’m starving.” 

Chapter 17

The tiny travel clock ticked loudly in the middle of the night. The neighborhood was a quiet one and that made the ticking even more insistent. Robin thought she heard every second pass as she waited for morning. 

She struggled to remember the name of the gallery. She turned over and over in her mind those news reports she’d found on the Internet. She remembered how excited she was to find this shred of evidence of her sister. 

Diane cried out in her sleep in the next bed. Robin turned toward her and saw a faint glistening of tears down her cheek.

“Mom,” she whispered. She crawled out of bed and stooped beside her mother. “Mom, wake up,” she said, shaking her mother’s arm. Her mother moaned in her sleep and then woke up.

“What’s the matter, Robin?” she asked when she saw her daughter standing over her. 

“You were having a nightmare,” she said. “Your cheek. You’ve been crying in your sleep.”

“Have I,” she said, wiping the tear away. “I must have been having one of those dreams again.”

“What dreams?”

“Oh dreams like the ones I had after we lost your sister. I kept having the same nightmare, really. I kept calling out to her but she’d never answer.  It’s nothing,” Diane forced a smile in the dark.

“You’re having these dreams again?” Robin asked, alarmed.

“Sometimes. They’ve never gone away completely. But I’ve had a few in the last couple of weeks. Usually just once or twice a week. Go back to sleep, dear. I’m fine,” her mother said, dismissing Robin. She rolled over and pulled the blanket up to her chin.

Robin lay down and tried to sleep. She heard the clock again and found herself thinking about what her mother had said. She hadn’t realized Eleanor's disappearance had caused nightmares; her mother never mentioned them before. 

She found herself finally drifting off to sleep when a thought about the gallery came to her. I think it had just two names, she thought. In Charing Cross. Where was that? How many galleries could there be in Charing Cross? 

Finally, Robin realized she was fully awake again and wasn’t going to sleep right away. She slipped out of bed and felt through the desk drawers for a telephone directory. She picked up the heavy book and her laptop and took them into the bathroom so she could turn on a light without waking her mother. She’d found the name once; she could find it again. 

The owner’s name was Robert, she recalled. No, maybe it was Herbert. No Herberts in the phone book. Robin found a handful of galleries in Charing Cross. She thought they were Charing Cross – she hadn’t figured out the addresses yet. W-this and N-that: they didn’t make any sense to her.

Original Photography, Allen and Gordon, McAllister Gallery. None of them sounded familiar. Robin was certain it wasn’t the first.  She flipped through the files she stored on her laptop, looking for the old notes she had kept when she had first searched the web for Ellen. That’s when she’d seen the note about the gallery opening. Maybe she had dismissed it back then, but tomorrow, she planned to take her mother on a tour of London galleries. The question was, which gallery was it? 

She felt herself getting drowsier and decided it was no use now. Robin couldn’t find the note; had she even kept it? She closed her laptop. She’d look again in the morning. She lay the book and computer down on the dresser and turned out the light. 

Robin listened to the clock tick as she fell back to sleep. The name Herbert stuck in her mind. She was sure she’d need to go to Charing Cross. How long could it take to go through all of the galleries there? she wondered. And she drifted off to sleep. 

“Wow,” Robin murmured when she saw the list of galleries that came up in her web search early the next morning. She counted seven on the first page that looked credible, six on the second page, eight on the third...and there were at seven pages to go through. She added “Eleanor Browne” to the search and came up with a few Brownes but none looked like Ellen. Variations didn’t help either. 

“Maybe,” Diane suggested as she watched Robin search, “we need to write them all down and just start looking.”

“We’re only here a few more days, Mom,” Robin said. “I know it had a short name, two words maybe.”

“Okay, then. Look for two-name galleries. How about this one: ‘Photographer’s Eye’? Or ‘Pixelated Dreams’?”

“That I’d remember. No, it was a boring name, nothing cute or clever. It was more like these: ‘Original Photography, Allen and Gordon, McAllister Gallery.’”

“Are they on the same street? Let’s start with those. Maybe there’s a reason they caught your attention first,” Diane offered, sitting on the bed to put on her shoes. “Write them down.”

“Yes, ma’am. That’s a good start. I have already written down these,” Robin added, showing her the little notebook. “Fifteen of them. Can we see them all before tea?”

“We’d better get going,” Diane said. “Finish your croissant.”

Charing Cross looked just as Diane and Robin hoped it would. Shops small and dark tumbled together in a variety of styles along narrow streets. Window displays in each beckoned them to come inside. Traffic was heavy and pedestrians filled the sidewalks on this fine early spring day. Diane found herself stopping in front of a shop window filled with classic titles by English authors — all books she knew she should read someday. “Oh, look,” Robin wandered to the shop next door. “This is one of the galleries on our list: ‘Original Photography’.”

After a brief, very brief, visit to the first gallery, Robin and Diane knew it was going to be a long day. One by one, Robin and Diane wandered through the galleries, stopping to ask the shop clerks and owners about a photo exhibit by Ellen. Some brushed them off; some seemed irked that these women would waste their time. A few were kind. None were helpful or even offered to look through their records or even their memories. 

“That was so long ago,” they heard more than once. “I wonder,” said Diane after the third time a shop clerk said it, “ if that’s supposed to be helpful.”

At noontime, they stopped in a small cafe to rest their feet and see if a bit of food would raise their spirits. “What a long morning,” Robin sighed as she sat at a tiny cloth-covered table.

“How many more are on your list now?” Diane said as she looked over the menu card.

“I can’t bear to look,” she said. “Must be a half dozen still to go.”

“Don’t think about it now. Have some lunch and we’ll think about something else for a while,” her mother said. 

Robin looked around the shop and felt happier just by the chintz-covered surroundings. Ladies wore hats and gloves in here. Not all, of course, but there was a table near theirs with a group of women in trim suits, pearls and pastel-colored hats. She looked down at her own rumbled pants and simple shirt. Her mother, naturally, fit in with these well-dressed ladies. She’d chosen gray flannel trousers, suede shoes with a buckle on the toe, a sunny yellow sweater set. Robin knew she’d pressed the clothes before she put them on.

Robin looked at her mother and took a sip of the soda that had just arrived. “I’m feeling lucky,” she said to her mother’s obvious surprise.

“After this dreadful morning?”

“Why not? We can’t have come all this way to find nothing.”

“And?”

Robin paused as delicate sandwiches were placed before them. 

“And, I was wondering if we could make some time tomorrow to look for some new clothes.”

“Well, I guess if you’re feeling lucky, then we’ll probably have some time. I’ve been wanting to get to Harrods before we go.”

The two women felt refreshed after lunch. They had studied the map while they ate and found they still had six galleries in a ten block area. “Let’s split up,” Diane said. “We can each go to three of them and meet at the hotel. She tore the list in half and handed part to her daughter. “See you at 6.”

Robin hoped her mother was having better luck than she was having as she exited from the first shop of the afternoon. The owner, who must not have had lunch yet, practically tossed her out of his cramped, dusty gallery for wasting his time. 

Her next stop was in the adjacent shop, a very different place from any of the others she had seen so far. It had the same quaint stone facade of the others. But inside was a wide-open space, quite modern with deep gray walls and black painted steel dividers, smoke-colored windows and smooth concrete floor. The main gallery was dedicated to sculpture. The current exhibit focused on the carvings of Inuits from Canada. Robin found herself drawn to a tiny greenish stone figure in a case by the front door. It was of a man standing on one foot. He seemed to be swinging a drum or tambourine. Cold and smooth, the stone man touched her. 

“That’s a real beauty,” said a pale, thin man with a fringe of sandy hair and beard as he welcomed Robin into the gallery.  “The artist was one of the best in Canada. His work is in great demand. Do you like sculpture? Or would you prefer painting? Painting and photography are in the upstairs galleries,” he said, leading her to the steel stairs at the back of the gallery.

“Yes, well, actually, I’m interested in photography. I’m looking for Herbert Gordon,” Robin said. 

“That would be my partner. I’m Bernard Allen. Do you have an appointment with Herbert? He’s usually not here until after lunch.”

“No, I’m really looking for a photographer. Perhaps you know her,” Robin said and launched into her story.

“Eleanor Browne Carrington,” Allen said, tapping his lip with his index finger. He looked at Robin. “I can’t say I know the name. Let me check my files. Do you know if she had an agent?”

He led Robin down into a lower level of the gallery, a white washed basement cluttered with filing cabinets and pieces of sculpture and wide canvases still shrouded in bubble wrap. 

“I’m such a pack rat. Nobody keeps paper files anymore. Electronic files, jpegs and pdfs are all most people keep now. Who needs all the dusty paper? Herbert keeps telling me to get rid of this stuff,” he said, lifting up piles of catalogs and press releases stacked on top of the filing cabinets. 

“You never know when you’ll find out one of your artists needs a copy of his catalog — or you find out someone who showed their work here has become famous,” he continued and slipped reading glasses off the top of his bald head to perch them on his long, narrow nose.  

“Has that happened?” Robin asked.

“Not yet, but it will. Mark my word,” he said, pulling out a long file drawer. “I keep copies of all the exhibitions’ postcards and catalogs – if the exhibit is worth a catalog – and I file them by either the artist or agent. I’ve got whole drawers devoted to some agents,” he said, pulling out a drawer. “What did you say the agent’s name was?”

“I didn’t. It is Harris North,” Robin said.

“Don’t remember him either. Is he from here?” 

“Does that matter?”

“No, not really,” Allen said. “Why don’t you have a seat?” he asked motioning to two low black leather chairs. “This could take a while.”

Robin fidgeted while the man hunted through rows of filing cabinets. She couldn’t imagine how he had them filed after watching him open drawer after drawer when suddenly Allen pulled a slip of paper from the bottom drawer.

“Aha. What’s this? Here’s a postcard announcing the opening of a photo exhibit of scenes from the Alps.” Allen handed her a thick glossy card with tiny images of mountains and village scenes. 

There it was: “Eleanor Carrington.” The exhibit opened April 7, 1996, with a reception at 7:30 p.m.

“Do you have any other information about her? An address? A phone number maybe?” Robin asked.

“Should be here somewhere.” 

Robin thought she was going to scream as the man rifled through the drawer again. Her mother focused on the card.. “It’s been 10 years,” he said, as a sort of apology. Allen looked at Robin’s face filled with disappointment. “Let me call Herbert and see if he can come down.”

The man disappeared into a tiny office for only a few minutes before he came back shaking his head.

“No answer from Herbert,” he said with an apologetic shrug. When he saw the disappointment cross the face of the young woman, he offered, “I could have him call you later if you’ll leave your contact information. 

Robin handed him her business card, scribbling the name of the hotel on the back. “Just in case he can talk to us while we’re in London.”

As she stepped back onto the city street, the sunny skies had turned gray and the first rain drops were beginning to fall. Robin rooted around in her bag for her pocket-sized umbrella.

As the umbrella went up, the rain came down. Hard and heavy. She dashed across the street to a women’s clothing store. Glancing at her watch, she saw she had only an hour to get back to the hotel. And she had one more gallery to see. 

Not in this rain, she thought as rivers rushed from the downspouts. As she waited for the rain to stop, she browsed through the racks of scarves. Picking out a flowery pink one, her cell phone rang. It was Jane.

“So how are Will and Harry?”

“Wouldn’t you know? They weren’t free for tea yesterday,” answered Robin who was never surprised by Jane’s calls. “Shouldn’t you be in class?”

“I had a break and thought I’d see what you were finding out.”

“Nothing so far,” Robin sighed. 

“Not even a good souvenir?”

“I’m picking out something for you right now. It’s pink and flowery and very British. That’s all I’m saying.”

“And what about yourself? Find something pretty? Or maybe someone handsome?”

“The man in the last gallery was charming,” Robin started and she notice a new call coming in. “Oh Jane, I’ve got a call from London. I better go.”

“You say that to me much too often. See you this weekend.”

“Yes,” Robin answered the new caller.

“Miss Browne, Herbert Gordon here,” said the man, speaking with a rich, bass accent. “Bernard tells me you’re looking for your sister. And I might have known her? Well, I do remember and I’m aghast that Bernard didn’t remember her. She worked here, not for long, you see, but it was one of those rare times when there was anyone other than Bernard and me in the gallery.”

“Yes, Bernard, except of course your mother,” he said, though clearly not to Robin.

“I’m just across the street. I could stop right over,” Robin said, throwing down the scarf and hurrying toward the door.

“No, I’m sorry that won’t be convenient right now. A shipment just arrived and I have to take care of it,” Gordon said. “I was thinking perhaps tomorrow?”

“Yes, sure, “ Robin answered, looking through the store window at the gallery. A truck was parked in front and the driver was carrying small brown parcels inside. She could see Mr. Allen holding the door open. 

“At ten? Very good, see you then,” Gordon said. He hung up before Robin could answer. She  noticed him coming to the door as well.

“May I help you?” a shop girl asked her, holding up the pink scarf.

***

Robin felt like a spring day when she dressed the following morning. She put on her new pale green skirt, liking it as much as the first time she wore it. She tied her new floral scarf around her white blouse and examined the look in the mirror.

“All dressed up!” Diane said as she came out of the bathroom. “Your new clothes are quite becoming. I wish we had had time today for more shopping.”

“This outing is much more important,” Robin said. “It’s why we’re here, after all.”

“I hope it goes better than yesterday,” Diane said, as she turned on the TV, looking for the weather forecast. “And I hope it doesn’t rain like it did yesterday.”

Diane had arrived back at the hotel just before Robin, soaking wet, without umbrella and with a discouraged look on her face. But she had forgotten the terrible afternoon once she heard about Robin’s appointment the next morning. The feelings of disappointment gave way to anticipation. Robin knew she wasn’t ready to feel hopeful, so seeing any glimmer of her own excitement in Diane was a good sign.

When the two women arrived at the gallery, both owners were there to greet them.

Bernard Allen came up first. “Good to see you again. I’m afraid I never got another chance to look for that card yesterday afternoon — I’ll try while you talk to Herbert. He reminded me who Eleanor was.” He disappeared down into the office.

“Yes I do remember the girl,” Gordon nodded.  “I wasn’t really interested in her work at the time but she begged and pleaded, asked for a job, asked for a recommendation. She was so insistent. Finally, I decided to give her a temp job. We had a big exhibit about to open and an enormous amount of mailing to do. I hired her to lick envelopes and run errands. It couldn’t have been for more than a few weeks. I had no intention of showing her work but a small show canceled and rather than have bare walls, I asked her to bring in what she had. ”

“She turned out to be a real go-getter,” he added. The work she showed me from the Alps was good but later she showed me photos from the Australian Outback that had real promise. She said she had recently come back from Australia where had been camping and shooting pictures. I was hoping to get some of those for an exhibition before the Olympics, Sydney, you may remember. As I said, she didn’t stay very long. Said she wanted to go back to America. Needless to say, I never got a chance to show her Australian work,” said Gordon. He was a barrel-chested man with shirtsleeves rolled up to show his very hairy arms. He wore thick glasses and a hearing aid. “And you’re her sister?” he asked. 

He didn’t wait for a response before returning to his recollections. “You lost her, eh? She certainly disappeared from here.  She came in the day of the exhibit opening and said she had to get going. I never heard from her again. When did you lose touch with her? Oh, yes, you told me. She had mentioned a husband once. He was a photographer, too, worked for one of the news agencies, I believe. I don’t know what happened to him, though.” Gordon had clearly forgotten Robin and Diane were there as he remembered Ellen. 

With every tidbit of information, Robin grew hungrier for more. A hundred questions crowded her mind.

“Do you have any idea how I can get in touch with her?” 

“I really don’t. Spoke to her agent a couple of times after that but not to her. We couldn’t connect. I really wanted her Australia photos. It just didn’t work out. Have you called her agent?” Gordon asked.

“Found the catalog,” Allen called out, waving a thin paperback volume. “It’s not much but maybe it will help.”

“Oh very good!” exclaimed Gordon. Robin couldn’t help herself, rushing to pull the book out of the man’s hands. She had to see. It wasn’t much: a few pages filled with color photocopies and stapled together.

On the cover was a picture of the castle in Salzburg, the same photograph hanging in her foyer. The mystery man leaned against the lamppost. “This man here? Is this her husband?” Robin asked.

Diane leaned over to study the photo. 

“What? Hmm. I don’t know,” Gordon said. He pulled his glasses off, dug a magnifying glass out of his shirt pocket and examined the cover. “I guess it could be.”

“Could we borrow this?”

 “Taxi!” Robin called out, clutching the catalog firmly.

As she stepped into the taxi, a shred of paper fluttered to the ground. Diane caught it before a breeze picked it up again.

“What’s this?” she asked as she got in beside Robin. “All it says is, ‘Eleanor and 1203 Butterworth Court.’ Not even a city”

“Is it Ellen’s address here!?” Robin felt her heart thumping as she tried to catch her breath.

“Driver,” Diane asked. “Do you know where Butterworth Court is?”

“Not in London, I’m afraid. I know my streets here and that’s not a place I’ve heard of.”

Hugh had pulled out an atlas of London maps and pored over the index. “Not a Butterworth Court anywhere.”

“Let me get another map. We’ll find it,” he said and flashed her a kind smile. 

“I’m keeping you from your job,” Robin protested, suddenly aware of the time as they sat in a cab without the meter running.

“Think nothing of it,” he said. “Glad to help young ladies in distress. Besides, I like a good mystery.”

Stashed under the front seat, the taxi driver had a pile of street maps. One by one, he studied the index. Robin grew a little more impatient and a little less hopeful each time he threw another book aside.

“Couldn’t you just type it into your GPS there?” Robin said, pointing to the little receiver by the meter. 

“Never trust those things,” he said as he opened another book. Robin looked at him skeptically and he relented. “Well, all right. I’ll give it a go.”

“Buttercup, you said? No, Butterworth.” He typed and retyped, thick thumbs fumbling on the little keypad. “What do you know? There’s only one in all of England. In Bristol.”

“Bristol? Is that near here?”

“I’m afraid not, miss. It’s west of London, down the M4. About 200 kilometers away, it looks.” he said, showing her the spot on the GPS map. “You can catch the train to Bristol from Paddington Station. It takes about an hour to get there. Can I drop you there?”

“What do you think, Mom? Should we go now?”

“I’ve always wanted to see Bristol in the wintertime,” Diane replied. 

“Paddington Station it is.”