My Darling Love
Chapter 63 – All the Winters That Have Been
"Love takes off masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within."
-James Baldwin
The Christmas Party lasted well into the next day, with most taking their leave after the sun was already up, blazing in the sky. George made it until three, and then retired to his bed with Mary by his side, telling their guests, "Please, stay and enjoy yourselves." The elders of the group left, leaving the younger ones, fresh in life and love, to welcome the morning hours, drinking, dancing and making merry. Wendy tickled the keys until her back ached and then she, too, headed to the attic as the first light of dawn rose on the horizon. But she did not sleep. She gently packed away all the portraits and sculptures she had crafted of Captain Hook and Jane, and placed them neatly in the back storage closet, farthest away from her in the attic. It was the place Mary kept all her own knick knacks and house things that were too old and out of date to leave at hand, but which still contained too much of the past to throw away.
"There will never come a time in your absence, my dearest Gwendolyn, that I have not seen your face in my mind and dreamed you were with me through all the winters that have been…"
Written in Captain Hook's own hand, Wendy had grabbed his journal off his desk in the cabin of the Jolly Roger as she fled with her father and Peter Pan as Neverland was dropped from existence into the fires of hell. It was the only thing he had written in the journal, except for her name on the first page dated that very night. Wendy rubbed her hand over the indentations on the parchment and kissed the leather covering engraved with his name.
She went to her drawing board and began once again, using her paints and brushes to make her masterpiece. Captain Hook standing at the rail of the Jolly Roger, with snow and ice freezing the sea, as the gracious lights of heaven were raining down on him through the clouds in the sky, clouds that shadowed him alone in darkness. Instead of his smile she always cast his likeness in, she gave him a sorrowful expression of wonderment at all that could have been if she were there. "This is how I shall remember him always, as he truly was."
As she finished later that same day, she hastily dressed and sprinted to the carpenter who lived down the street and around the block, giving him a sketch and measurements of two frames she wanted crafted by her design, and the payment for his work in full.
Wendy made her way home just as fast, and began her second work, a painting for her mother. She started on the steps of her house and drew an outline of what she wanted and then scrapped the idea, getting a better one as a couple in love hailed a cab in front of the Darling house and got in. Her parents were awake and having breakfast when she blew in and whispered something in her father's ear. He looked toward Mary and nodded his head.
"What is it, George?" Mary asked as Wendy shot up the stairs, to which he responded, "She wants to draw a bird that sits in a tree outside our room, she wanted permission to enter there to do so." Mary shrugged her shoulders, going back to her eggs and coffee, George smiling to her while returning to his paper.
At her mother's bedroom window, Wendy gazed down at the street below and began drawing. She looked quickly below and back to her pad, moving her hands using a pencil to get every detail. When she felt ready, she returned to her attic workspace and began. It went much slower than with Captain Hook, Wendy found herself stopping repeatedly to close her eyes and gather her thoughts. She listened to her heartbeat and concentrated on her breathing, pleading with her mind to free the earliest memories that she had of her father. In the solitude of the attic, with the house a bustle of activity and noise below, she glimpsed at her father through her mind's eye as her mother had always seen him.
Although she could not remember the specific moment that replayed in her mind, she saw George full of life, young, handsome and strong. He was wearing a suit and looking up to her with a smile full of love and adoration. "It's all right, Wendy, daddy will make it better," he said, and her perspective pulled away to see Wendy the child, in her nightgown sleepy eyed and crying, race down the stairs and run into his awaiting arms. He cradled her and picked her up, she no more than two or three, and he, her father, valiantly carried her back up, soothing her, "There is no such thing as monsters that steal away your dreams, for my dearest child, that is only a nightmare from which you have awoken safe and sound. But have no fear, my love, for no matter what, daddy will always be there to rescue you and carry you home."
That was the face she put into her painting, the expression of love and adoration, looking up to her mother, dressed in white, leaning out her bedroom window. And on Sunday morning as her family dressed for church, she presented it to her parents as their belated Christmas gift in their bedroom.
Before opening the fancy wrapping, George commented, "Wendy, you gave your mother new knitting needles and yarn and you gave me a new scarf, hat and gloves, that was plenty."
Both Mary and George were speechless as Mary tore into the wrapping, her seeing George's perfectly handsome face gazing up at her as the first piece of paper was ripped away. "Oh, Wendy!" Mary gasped as the rest was revealed. George stood up without aid to get the best look he could, placing his old eyes only an inch from it, "Was I really that handsome to you, Mary?" he asked as he inspected every detail Wendy had so eloquently placed upon the canvas.
"Yes, George, and that handsome to Wendy as well."
"That is not for you, Father, that is for Mother. This is for you." Wendy handed her father a small box, it was velvet and faded with time. "I found this when I was storing some of my portraits and sculptures in the attic. It's not from me, it's from your wife."
George opened the box and inside was two gold cuff links Mary had intended to give him the Christmas she was forced to spend with Captain Hook. They had a three small jewels encased on the face of the link, diamond, emerald and alexandrite, the birthstones of their children together. George could no longer see it, for his eyes failed him, but it was there, engraved around each stone the initial of the child the month belonged to. The meeting place of the letter "W" held the diamond for Wendy, as was the same for the "M" of Michael who was born in July. The emerald of May was joined in the middle of the "J" for John. Above the cuff links was a tie pin, an emerald and ruby stone for George and Mary with the date of their true marriage in July, not the formal service in November to recognize what God had already accepted and blessed. George could not see that either, but running his fingertip over the gold, he knew it was there. George blinked his tears from his eyes, and directed his wife, "Mary, help me put these on." She did, he catching her while she fixed his tie, and caught her in a kiss that made Wendy quietly excuse herself, closing the door to their bedroom softly, giving them privacy.
"However did you afford this, Mary?" George asked when their kiss ended.
"I can't tell you, George, I'm afraid you will get angry," Mary replied, holding on to his embrace for dear life.
"Mary," he spoke as he shifted her head to his face with his hand, "I won't be angry, please tell me." Mary kissed his cheek and then his lips once more. "Do you remember the cameo pin Margaret wore on her wedding day?"
George nodded, "The old or was it the borrowed?"
Mary shook her head, "It doesn't matter, Wendy borrowed it from a friend, her friend, George," Mary's voice gave a hint to her meaning without saying the name. "Wendy forgot to take it back with her when she left. I met that friend, I returned it, but he said for me to keep it, pawn it to buy you a Christmas gift because I had no money to buy you a present, and I wanted so much to get it for you. It was to be my own peace offering to you. I forgot after all the years I hid it away in the attic."
George smiled and pulled his wife in for one more kiss before Harry interrupted with a knock on their door, "We'll be late, it's a sin to be doing that stuff on a Sunday morning!" he joked from the hall outside.
"I wish I could still make love to you, Mary," George spoke as his wife fixed him and herself before opening the door and helping him up. "I miss that a lot."
Mary concurred with a bashful smile, taking her hand in his. "One night, George, just one last time, I know we will."
George liked that idea, and carried those thoughts with him on the ride to church and throughout the mass. Mary held in her mind the fantasy of them together in that intimate way up above in the sky on a puffy cloud, "Oh heavens," she whispered to her husband when he ran his hand up her leg to her bloomers in the middle of the service. "Maybe twice more, Mary …" George silently spoke back moving her hand to the bulge in his pants hidden underneath his coat.
Wendy decided, that morning in church, as Father Dunange said his first mass since being assigned to the parish, that maybe her eyes and ears did deceive her. The resemblances she would swear on her life were there, were only figments of her imagination, for not another soul, now, including herself, would ever be able to say the priest and her pirate captain were one in the same. She saw of him what she needed to see and hear to survive. Captain Hook was lost in the fires of hell, but soon lifted to the heavens by God himself, for he had earned a place there above the clouds in peace. He would be there to take care of Jane and watch over her, something he could never do in Neverland, and that eased her mind and alleviated her heart enough to go on.
In Wendy's mind during mass, she saw Jane and James dancing together on stars in the night sky, jumping and twirling from one to other. "They will look down on us and keep watch over us, angels they were among us. Pray for them," Mary whispered to Wendy as the monsignor gave his sermon directing all to remember loved ones who had died and were buried.
December was a cold month, January even colder. It snowed almost every day, locking most inside their homes, sheltered from the freeze in the warmth of their families. Wendy spent that month re-assembling her studio, donating her portraits openly to whoever wanted them. The maid took several she had done, sketches of summers on an exotic island, watercolors of oceans with plentiful waves, all drawn from her memory.
When the walls and floors were bare of her creations, she did as the priest had told her and went on. She painted more common items, teapots and flowers, scenes for her window of the tall buildings being raised that touched the sky. Her students still delighted in the fanciful adventures, drawing gingerbread houses and three bears eating breakfast at the kitchen table with a blonde headed girl peeking in through the window. Wendy kept busy teaching, taking in more students, working from breakfast to well past nine at night. Instead of staying awake until the wee hours of morning in her own imagination, she turned off the lamp in the nursery and went to bed after her final child left and her late night snack was eaten.
It was hard for her to be trapped inside all the time, though, she preferred to be out in the fresh air, no matter what the weather was like, so in the first week of February, when she could stand the confinement no more, she grabbed her drawing pad and trudged through the ice and snow to the park.
"Wendy, you'll catch your death, there is a foot of snow outside," Mary called after her as she dressed in her coat and Wellingtons. Wendy wanted to retort, "Good, I hope so," but the voice inside her heart said quicker, "Don't worry, Mother, I'm wearing three sweaters, cotton underwear, a pair of Father's trousers, four pairs of socks, coat, hat scarf and gloves, I'll be fine. And the moment I come home, I promise to take a hot bath and change out of my wet clothes."
After clearing a park bench, Wendy sat down and sketched a winter scene, losing herself in her work, unaware she was being watched. "Have not seen you in church for a few weeks," Father Dunange spoke up, taking a seat on the bench beside her. "Seems you found the only place in all of London, not covered in snow."
Wendy glanced up from her picture, hating to be interrupted while drawing, and remarked, "Well, I swept away the snow before sitting down." She still moved her pencil over the paper, conscious of his presence beside her, and so she offered, "Can't imagine you've see too many people in church these past weeks with the weather."
"No, there are those who make a way there no matter what," he responded leaning over her shoulder to gaze at her winter wonderland on paper.
"Obviously I am not one of those people," Wendy answered, slamming the cover of her pad down, hiding her drawing from sight. "I'm sorry, I don't mean to be rude," she said as he backed away to the other side of the bench with her gesture, "I just don't like people seeing what things I've drawn before they are completed." She offered a pleasant smile, and turned her head toward him, he still holding his stare.
"Where are you from? Dunange? My mother said France?" she asked, feeling it best to start a new conversation, as the one they were engaged in was not well-suited for a pleasant afternoon away from her home.
"Yes, Dunange is French, but I'm not really sure where I am from originally. I was placed in an orphanage when I was still an infant. I was raised there."
Wendy nodded her head solemnly, such a sad tale, "No one adopted you? Where were your parents?"
James shrugged his shoulders, "No, no one wanted me. I don't know where my parents were, I guess they didn't want me either."
Such a sad tale not to be wanted, and if love is the lesson of childhood, how can it be learned if even then you are not wanted? Wendy loved all children, especially infants so tiny and cuddly, always wanting to be held and kissed. She doted on her nephews, even if they lived across the ocean in America. She was not there for her sister-in-law's first two children's births, she still being married to the man that made her a widow, and Wendy was also missing when Joseph and Edmund were born. But she was there, making a special trip on a ship to see the youngest of her brother's children, Michael and George, safely delivered into the world. Wendy couldn't imagine anyone not wanting them, remembering them wrapped in a blue blanket screaming to be fed and changed. For Father Dunange as he held his expression of acceptance of his fate to be unloved, Wendy still could not fathom that simple "not wanting."
"That's ridiculous, why would they not want you?"
James lifted his right hand and removed the glove he always wore to cover it. Even as he said mass, the normal black leather he preferred had been replaced, attired with another of white cotton. "I was born with a deformity."
The palm of his hand was there, but the fingers were not. In their place, someone had crafted a metal glove that attached to his elbow with fingers of wood. "What happened to your fingers?" Wendy asked, moving closer to get a better look at what made him malformed and unwanted.
"I was born without a hand, the palm is just a lighter shade of wood." He tapped on it to show her error.
"I do not think that just being born without a hand could make you unwanted. Maybe your parents both died and there was no other family to take you in. But even then, someone somewhere probably wanted you but…" she paused as he replaced the glove to cover the prosthetic limb, and he cut short he consolation of his situation with a clarification of sorts.
"It was not only my hand, I have a deformity of the arm running up to my shoulder blade as well. My joints are stiffened, which makes moving them difficult at times. My hand and arm are the reasons why I cannot serve mass any longer."
Wendy did her best to give him a genuine smile full of encouragement, and she went as so far as to pat him on the shoulder saying, "You did fine at the service that I saw."
He nodded looking ahead, "Yes, but that was the first and the last. It is too difficult for me to move around freely without having the worry I will knock something over that should not be broken in the church. I will just hear confessions, that suits me fine anyway."
"You seem to be very capable with your arm, did another priest say something to you?"
James shook his head, "No, I just don't feel comfortable performing for an audience. I find I do my best work in the darkness and shadows."
Wendy still smiled and opened her pad, showing him her drawing of the pond covered in snow and the trees surrounding it covered in white. "That's lovely, Wendy, may I see your other sketches?" He too smiled. Wendy handed him her pad, and he glanced through her teapots and flowers coming upon a portrait in colored pencils Wendy had drawn of her mother Mary. Father Dunange looked at that one the longest, brushing his fingertips over her lips and neck, "Your mother?" he asked when he noticed her watching him.
"Yes, I drew that a very long time ago, the first Christmas I came home after being away for so long. She was sitting down at the dining room table when I entered wearing that face, she always seems so happy, but on that night she was so sad. I don't know -- it's foolish. She looks like she wants to run away from whatever it was she was thinking about. Almost like she knew what was coming next…"
Wendy yanked her pad away from him and closed it shut.
"It's getting colder as the sun will soon set on another day. Would you like me to walk you home?" James asked, rising from his seat extending his artificial hand to her, wanting to lift the tension that engulfed their exchange.
"Thank you," she replied clasping it as he pulled her up to her feet with more force than necessary, causing her to lose her footing and fall on top of him in a heap of snow.
They both laughed and caught the other's eye with a look Wendy knew was too familiar to be anyone else's but her Captain's. "My mother died right after I was born, my father had already passed," James whispered to Wendy.
There was pain of loss in his face, not to mention the desire of wanting to be loved by someone somewhere. Wendy moved her mouth down gently to his lips with her eyes closed waiting to feel their softness against her own. James saw her expression; he knew what she was feeling inside, for he had dreamed of that moment -- that real kiss -- also. But he was a priest, in God's presence since his birth; no woman before on earth had ever kissed him, and he knew the sin that would be committed and it's cost as she leaned toward him.
"I can't, Wendy -- I'm so sorry." James touched his hand to her lips as Wendy opened her eyes and jerked her head back. Before he could even open his mouth to give her some sort of words to describe his own inner conflicts, she was up and running.
She raced the entire way home and up the stairs, locking herself in the attic as if a crazed murderer was on the loose and after her. Mary was in the hall when she rushed in and she froze in place, terrified someone was in fact chasing her daughter. "Wendy, is something wrong?" she heard her mother calling from the bottom of the stairs.
"No, mother I am fine, I just got very cold and wanted to change," she quickly called down so her mother would not come up the stairs. She sat on the bed, still in her coat.
"Leave your wet clothes at the top of the stairs, and I'll send the maid up for them." Wendy did as she was told, first she bathed in warm water and changed into her normal clothing. She returned to the attic and went straight to bed, rolling over on her stomach, placing her pillow over her head when she realized she left her favorite sketchpad in the park.
Wendy fell into a light slumber, and stayed in the attic undisturbed until the maid knocked that dinner was on the table. "I'm not hungry, but thank you…" she mumbled with her head still under the pillow.
Wide awake now, she still lay on the bed in that position, listening to her father shout at her mother, not in a nasty tone, but his normal sound, for his hearing was now going too, and felt that every one he spoke with faced the same ailment. Down in the dining room her parents engaged in their normal dinnertime talks about, well, whatever it was people who were married that long still talked about. Mary's soft tone could barely be heard if not talking to George, but as he yelled, "I READ IN THE PAPER THAT THIS IS THE WORST WINTER IN YEARS, MORE POTATOES PLEASE, MARY, THEY ARE DELICIOUS."
Wendy giggled knowing her mother would be forced to scream back, "I READ THAT AS WELL, WOULD YOU LIKE MORE GREEN BEANS AS WELL, GEORGE? I TRIED A NEW RECIPE."
After dinner came dessert, and for Wendy after dessert and more shouting came more sleep, which was interrupted when the front bell rang signaling the Darlings had a visitor. "IT'S PROBABLY JUST HARRY WANTING A FREE MEAL. TOO BAD, HE MISSED OUR LOVELY SUPPER YET AGAIN. I TOLD HIM, MARY, WE DINE AT EXACTLY SEVEN. DON'T KNOW WHY HE RANG THE BELL! HE KNOWS OUR DOOR IS ALWAYS OPEN TO HIM! FIX HIM A PLATE, WILL YOU PLEASE, MY LOVE?" George shouted to Mary who was already answering the door.
The steps creaked as a person ascended them, and Wendy listened as her father shouted, "THE WASHROOM IS AT THE TOP OF THE STAIRS, YOU CAN USE MY WIFE'S FANCY SOAP IN THE BASKET ON THE SINK IF YOU LIKE. WENDY'S ROOM IS THE DOOR ACROSS FROM THE WASHROOM. JUST BANG ON IT TILL SHE OPENS UP. THAT LAZY GIRL HAS BEEN NAPPING ALL DAY, FATHER."
The last bit hit her a little late, and she bolted up from bed and to her door just in time to save him the trouble of knocking on it. "Hello, Wendy, I hope I'm not bothering you." James spoke with her sketchpad in his hand.
"Come in." She opened the door and stepped aside, giving him access to the stairs leading to her bedroom.
James entered and looked around, seeing her only remaining portrait of Captain Hook framed in an exquisite frame of gilded wood that hung above her bed. "All the winters that have been," he repeated the inscription to himself, engraved on a tiny golden plaque attached at the bottom barely visible from where he was standing. Pointing to her most precious masterpiece, he spoke a little surprised, "He was real, I mean, he was truly a real man, not just your imagination?"
Wendy was also a bit stunned by his question, "How ever could I make all that up? I love him, he was real, and me loving him made him so. I don't care what anyone says about me, I loved him and I still do. I can't believe you would think for one moment I made it all up. It wasn't a story, word for word it was the truth!"
James turned to face her with a lost expression, "Story?"
Wendy walked up to him and looked deep into his eyes, "The things I confessed to you about Captain Hook. All of it, all of it was true."
James backed up, as did Wendy when she saw his retreat, "I don't keep in mind what was said in the confessional, Wendy, I just…" He stopped himself, and stepped to her. "You left this in the park," he handed her the sketchpad gingerly and after a moment of holding on end as she held the other he whispered, "and this." He inelegantly leaned into to her blinking his eyes faster than he needed to make sure his aim was correct, placing his lips gently to hers.
"You thought you were just in my imagination, you never knew I thought of you as real," she said when their short but sweet kiss was complete.
Father Dunange did not hear her, he was too busy taking her head in his hands and pulling her in for a more passionate and lingering exchange. He kissed her face and down her neck, which she offered willing, "Oh how I prayed for this moment," Wendy whispered as he ran his lips up her throat to her mouth, where they again met.
On instinct, Wendy began to unbutton his shirt and he followed suit by opening her blouse. He used his hand, guiding down over her breasts, still hidden behind her undergarment. She reciprocated the touch, gently touching his chest, feeling the warmth of his skin and the hair found there. The interlude came to a sudden halt when Wendy attempted to unfasten his belt; James shoved her away forcefully, lowering his head to regain his composure in their heated moment.
"I'm sorry, James, I'm so sorry. I just need to feel you again," Wendy offered as he hastily re-buttoned his shirt and fixed his appearance.
"Again? Wendy I have never been this way with you before, you must confused with someone else." He continued his assault to her heart by demanding, "Wendy, please cover yourself, it is improper for you to leave your blouse open to my eyes like that. I'm a priest, not one of your many lovers."
But Wendy had gone too far to let him go now; she moved back to him and pecked his mouth, he doing his best to resist her temptation, "I thought you said you don't keep in mind what I said in the confessional. You are my only lover, what we did together was blessed in God's eyes."
Again he defended himself, grabbing her harshly by the shoulders and thrusting her away, "We never did anything, Wendy," he growled, then taking to stairs before she could get up. He had hit the door leading to the hallway and stopped, hearing her voice echoing down to him as she stood at the top landing.
"If you ever loved me, Captain Hook, do not run away now. I have lived the same as you once did through all the winters that have been. I promised you I would return, and I did. I am sorry I was late, but you told me once, better late then never."