Peter turned off the water, then paused, distracted by a strange thumping noise in the hall. The sound was familiar, but he couldn’t quite remember where he’d heard it before. Puzzled, he stepped down from the stool and crept to the hall door to peek out. The sight that met his eyes made his stomach knot with dismay.
It wasn’t his usual reaction. Unlike most big brothers, Peter was fond of his five-year-old sister. Dad called Nell his changeling, because of her odd ways and fair hair, but she reminded Peter of a painting he’d seen in one of Dad’s picture books, a rosy-cheeked cherub with sparkling blue eyes and a mop of curls like Dad’s, only Nell’s were golden instead of gray. Admittedly, none of the cherubs in the picture books had carried a small, chocolate-brown teddy bear, but Peter could no more imagine his sister without Bertie than he could picture an angel without wings. And now the sight was making his stomach hurt.
“Where did you and Bertie find those clothes, Nell?” Peter asked.
“I am Queen Eleanor,” Nell announced, clutching Bertie with one hand and pinching the hem of her skirt with the other, “and this is Sir Bertram of Harris, and we do not speak with pheasants.”
“That’s peasants, Nell.” Peter had known it would be a mistake for Dad to read the King Arthur stories to her, but that was not the immediate problem. The immediate problem was that Nell had dressed Bertie in Mum’s favorite silk scarf and herself in Mum’s pink flowery dress and white high-heeled shoes, and Dad was due home at any minute.
“You must call me Your Majesty,” Nell corrected him. “And you must call Bertie Sir Ber—”
“Nell, stop playing.”
“I am Queen—”
“Nell.”
“Auntie Bea?” Nell spoke in her own voice, her eyes darting to the parlor door.
Peter shook his head, relieved. Nell was cooperative enough once he got her attention, but Queen Eleanor could be stubborn as a mule.
“No,” Peter explained, “those clothes. It’ll make Dad sad to see them.”
“Will it?” Nell conferred briefly with Bertie before asking the inevitable: “Why?”
“Because they’re Mum’s. They’ll remind Dad of her.”
“And that will make him sad?”
“Yes,” Peter replied patiently, “that will make him very sad.” He considered telling Nell about the window, but decided against it. Queen Eleanor might turn it into a royal proclamation. “Come along, Nell. Help me pack those things up again and I’ll find you and Bertie something else to play with.”
“Something beautiful?”
He nodded. “Something beautiful.” Peter unwound Bertie’s scarf, then helped Nell step out of the high heels and slipped the dress up and over her head. He was pleased to see a kelly-green jumper and blue dungarees underneath. With Nell, he was never sure what to expect.
He followed her back to the storeroom, where she’d pried open one of the boxes in which Dad had packed Mum’s things. After folding the dress and scarf, he laid them reverently on top of the other clothes, dusted the bottoms of the shoes on his pantleg, and placed them, soles up, atop the scarf. He closed the box, then turned to scan the storeroom.
“Nell,” he said, as a plan began to take shape, “do you and Bertie remember the story Dad read about the Romans?”
“And the lions?” Nell asked, brightening. “And the chariots and the swords and—”
“And the noble Romans in their beautiful white gowns?”
“Yes, we remember.” Nell nodded eagerly.
“Well,” said Peter, plucking a clean sheet from the stack on top of the tumble-dryer, “those gowns were called togas. Only the richest and most beautiful Romans were allowed to wear them.” Peter thought he might be stretching the truth a bit here, but never mind. He draped the sheet over Nell’s left shoulder, then swept it around to her right one.
“And they wore them to see the lions,” Nell said dreamily, reaching for a pillowcase with which to adorn Bertie, “and the chariots and the swords and ...”
Peter backed out of the storeroom as Nell’s eyes. took on that familiar, faraway look. That should hold her until supper. He could refold the linen after she and Bertie had gone to bed.
Peter paused on his way back to the kitchen. Turning slowly, he approached the door to his father’s workroom. Sometimes he needed to look in, to remind himself of the reason Dad had left so much of the work to him. Carefully, quietly, he turned the knob, opening the door just far enough to peek inside.
There were the racks of colored glass Dad planned to use in the duke’s window, and the packet of photographs the duke had sent. His father had shown him the photographs of the window, explaining how he would clean it up and make it good as new. His father hadn’t explained all of it, but he hadn’t needed to, because Peter understood.
Peter had heard the rector explain it to some visitors, not long after Mum had died, how the soul was like a window with God’s light shining through. Auntie Beatrice had got it wrong, saying that Mum’s soul would spend eternity in heaven. Peter knew that it was only waiting there, waiting for Dad to make this place for it on earth, this perfect place of rainbow colors, where God’s light would shine forever.
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