Yesterday Dawns Today

CHAPTER 1

Windsor, England 1995

"Jenny! Oh Jenny! I have something to tell you," Mabel Lane's excited voice called out from across the street, interrupting Jenny Singleton's thoughts, bringing her into now. She'd been looking down, but not really seeing, the newly moved fern bed. She liked the new placement of the bed, the ferns would be happy on the cooler dining room side of the house. Every summer they'd been burnt but, now these perfect pluming ferns would be green the whole summer protected by this new shaded area.

"Mabel is that you?" Jenny called back not sure if she'd really heard her friend. Her thoughts had been totally submerged far away in the past, that strange place which can so easily be distorted through time. Jenny didn't have the luck to have her past memories lost, they were there biting at her, not enough to make her crazy but enough to bother her, sometimes making her feel at odds with the world. As she walked toward Mabel, wisps of silver white hair protruded out from underneath her large, old, straw rimmed gardening hat. The hat slightly covered her blue gray eyes, which gently peered out at the world. Her skirt swayed as she walked along.

The mid-afternoon sun shone gently through the big majestic oak trees that lined the streets of Windsor, England's castle town. The light streaked over the fern bed, onto the porch and on Jenny's skirt. Now days she had the luxury of time to reflect on all that had been before. Walking toward Mabel she thanked God that the turmoil of her earlier years was safely in the past. These thoughts weren't easy, they broke her heart. It hadn't been easy being young. She'd loved him so very much. How was it possible that someone so wrong for her had come along? Why was it she'd allowed him to dominate her life, breaking all the rules she knew, but she had.

Jenny's friendship with Mabel began soon after her return to England. She'd been in the States for years, mostly doing what she loved, teaching, giving something of herself to enrich the next generation and raising her daughter, Annie. That precocious little girl set Jenny's heart on fire, just to look at her, and still did so as an adult. They'd been a wonderful team, keeping each other in tow through all of life's good, bad and indifference's. Now, Mabel was here, and her mind was stupidly in the past.

"Of course it's me. I've come to pick you up for tea." Mabel cheerfully said, at fifty-eight and a half she was still a very attractive woman, as was Jenny, neither had to hold a candle to anyone. They were both blessed with the peaches and cream complexions that make English women so extremely appealing. Lovely thick strawberry blonde hair surrounded Mabel's rosy happy face. It was worn swept up into a pile of bouncing curls plopped on top of her head giving her an almost angelic appearance. She was just plain pretty. She was dressed in a light pink blouse and navy blue skirt. When they stood side by side, Jenny was only a touch taller. Her blue gray eyes looked bluer in the sunlight which caught the silver streaks in her hair, her normal radiance glowed as though she was a child. She was also dressed in a navy blue skirt but had a white blouse with a small sailor collar.

"Wonderful. I'm hungry."

The day had been as many others, busy, but without much of interest happening and Jenny was ready for a good cup of tea. As was their routine, they went to the Victorian Tea House on Datchet Street. Ordering big cups of Earl Gray tea and a little something to eat, they talked and chatted as they did most everyday. A little gossip about Mrs. Robinson and her outrageous flirtations with the butcher Mr. Brodell, the newest prices of tea, a little politics, then about the charming, very good looking, new anchor man on Channel Two's Evening News. There was also the subject of the darn cat that cried all night. They couldn't come up with what ailed the poor beast.

Mabel changed the subject to a more serious note.

"I've been wanting to tell you, you know yesterday there was a strange man looking at your house, three times in fact. He, the last time, oh I guess about four o'clock even walked back into the garden. He then came over to my house to ask about you," Mabel said.

"Really?"

"Yes. He certainly looked like some kind of detective, straight out of an Agatha Christy book," Mabel said looking at Jenny.

"What made you think he was a detective?" Jenny asked.

"I don't know, just something. You aren't in any kind of trouble, are you?"

Picking up a scone and buttering it, Jenny laughed, "Me? Lord no. At least I don't think so. If you were worried why didn't you call me?"

Mabel stirred her tea. "I tried, but you weren't there. Then last night I was so tired, I fell asleep on the couch, around six and didn't wake up till this morning. Where were you yesterday?"

"Believe it or not, the school called me that night asking if I would come in the next morning to substitute teach. So I did," she said taking a bite of the freshly baked scone in front of her.

"No wonder you didn't see anything. But in any case, this man, kind of gruff looking, but with style, then came knocking on my door. He asked all kinds of questions about you," she said sipping her overly sugared tea.