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Why did he want to keep me from seeing and speaking to my great-aunt? More importantly, perhaps, what was she holding in her arms?

At the bottom of my stomach, a small trickle of ice water began to run into my veins. There was something here, something even my grandmother didn't know about, I thought, or she surely wouldn't have sent me.

5

Outcasts in London

.

As we walked through the park, Randall played

the tour guide. He read and spoke in a thick British accent, pretending to be a stuffy English lord, or as Mrs. Chester would say, "a chinless wonder."

He pulled his head back so that he could talk down at me with a lot of nasality.

"Kensington Gardens, adjacent to Hyde Park, was originally Kensington Palace's front yard, yes? Kensington Palace was originally called Nottingham House. It passed into royal ownership in 1689 when it was acquired by William and Mary. The King's asthma dictated a move from Whitehall Palace to the healthier air of Kensington, yes?

"Go on, take deep breaths," he said, taking big ones himself. "There, you see'? One breath and all the soot is gone from your lungs," he declared. "Go on," he urged me.

"I don't have any soot in my lungs, thank you," I said.

He continued to read from his guidebook.

"After William III's death in 1702 the palace became the residence of Queen Anne. Christopher Wren designed the Orangery for her and a thirty-acre garden was laid out by Henry Wise.

"The last monarch to live at Kensington Palace was George II, whose consort, Caroline of Ansbach, influenced the development of Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens. Consort?"

He stopped and thought. Then he smiled.

"Do you realize if it wasn't for his lover, this might not be here?" he asked. "Thank heaven for little girls, eh?" he sang now in a French accent.

People on both sides of us stopped to look and listen, their faces filling with smiles. His voice could carry across the city, I thought. How quickly he took me out of nay dark mood. We were both laughing by the time we reached the famous Round Pond where two little boys were sailing their toy boats. Randall suggested we stop and just sit on the grass and watch for a while. I sat, embracing my knees and gazing around at the beautiful flowers. Except for the laughter and shouts of the children, there was little noise. How far away my troubled world seemed now.

Randall had a wistful smile on his face as he watched the little boys run aotut the pond. He reminded me of an old man dreaming he was young again.

"What's it like where you come from?" I asked.

"Toronto? We live in a fashionable part of the city. I always attended private schools, just as my sister and brother do now. As I told you, Dad's a successful stockbroker with clients as far away as Hong Kong."

"And your mother?"

Mothers intrigued me far more than fathers at the moment, perhaps because my real one had turned out to be such a disappointment.

"My mother is an artist," he said playing with a blade of grass as if it was a paintbrush.

"Really?"

"Well, she wants to be. She has sold paintings and some small sculptures, but mostly to friends of the family. One of the galleries in Toronto featured her work a year ago." He smile

d. "I think Dad had something to do with that. If my mother knew or even suspected, she would have pulled her work out in a New York minute."

"New York minute?"

"Don't you know that expression? Dad's always using it. It means faster than anywhere else, I suppose because New Yorkers are always in a rush." He tilted his head. "Haven't you ever been to New York and been banged around by people hurrying down the sidewalks?"

"No? You've come to London, England, but you've never been to New York?" he asked astounded.

"I didn't always have these opportunities," I said. "For me, going to New York was about as difficult as going to London"