The Time Travelers: Volume One Page 10

Harriett could not bear to look at Mr. Rowwells, who was less heavy and hairy only because he was younger than Mr. Stratton, and hadn’t had time to acquire as much belly and beard. But he would, and Harriett would be his wife while he did it. Mr. Rowwells’ ugly bristly face would brush up against hers and she could never turn away.

  She had said yes when he asked for her hand, and had let her hand rest in his, sealing the agreement.

  A short word. An easy word.

  A dangerous, complete word. Yes.

  No! shrieked Harriett’s heart. No, no, no, no, no, no, no! I cannot marry this man. I cannot do with him whatever it is that married people do.

  But she had said that word, that little word yes, and it was a promise, and promises could not be broken. Oh, if she actually stood in the aisle in front of the altar and said, “No,” the rector at the Episcopal church would not force her to go through with the ceremony. But the shame and the scandal would be worse than the marriage.

  Nobody would associate with her. She would have no friends.

  She tried to imagine being friends with Mr. Rowwells the way she was friends with Strat. Oh, Strat, Strat, I love you so! Where did Miss Lockwood come from and why did you fall in love with her?

  Mr. Stratton moved closer. She felt burned by the smoking anger of her guardian. His waistcoat slithered against the silk jacket lining, and the chain of his pocket watch bounced against the rolls of his flesh. I will be chained by marriage, thought Harriett, just as Bridget is now chained in jail. Perhaps they are the same thing: jail and marriage to someone you don’t like.

  “Did you,” said Mr. Stratton once more, his fury darkening the room, “accept the marriage proposal of Clarence Rowwells?”

  I could lie, thought Harriett. I could say I listened to Mr. Rowwells’ proposal and didn’t respond. But I did respond. I said yes.

  I am a lady, and ladies give their word, and never break it.

  “I said yes,” said Harriet. Something in her died, seeing her future. College? What was that? She would never know. What about the lovely wedding Devonny had planned? What about the laughing honeymoon?

  Mr. Stratton’s fist slammed down with the force of a steam piston. He did not hit her. He hit the back of the leather chair, and then he hit it a second time, and a third. His cigar-thick fingers stayed in a yellow fist that he swung toward Aunt Ada. “Where were you when this was taking place?” he hissed, his boiler steam building to explosion. “Why do you think I have housed you all these years? For my entertainment, Ada?”

  Ada did not flinch. Mr. Rowwells did not tremble. They seemed almost a pair, and Harriett suddenly knew that not only would she be married to Mr. Rowwells, she would never be free of Ada; they would jointly own her.

  “I was attempting to corral young Mr. Stratton,” said Ada venomously. “He went flying after his little tramp, Hiram.” Ada did not, as she usually did, put a hand up to hide her toothless condition. Her smile was hideous and wet. “Like father, like son, Hiram. Young Mr. Stratton thinks only of the flesh of beautiful girls.”

  I am not beautiful, thought Harriett. All my life I will look into mirrors and see a plain woman. I don’t love Strat any less. I’m not even mad at him. I am the fool who said yes. I could have said no, and I didn’t, because at the moment I thought any marriage was better than no marriage.

  I love everything about Strat. I will always love everything about him. “You may place no blame on Strat,” said Harriett quietly. “I am a woman of twenty who knows her own mind. I did consent to the proposal of marriage from Mr. Rowwells.”

  There could be no more argument.

  She could never retrieve those words.

  Even if Strat were to forget Miss Lockwood, and repent of his ways, and want Harriett back, it could never happen now.

  For Harriett Ranleigh had given her word.

  Bridget stood very still in the middle of the cell. Perhaps if she did not move, not ever again in this life, the filth and horror would not touch her. The cell was in a windowless cellar, and even though it was noon, no light entered the hole into which she had been shoved.

  The scrabbling noises were rats. When she was too tired to stand she would have to lie down among them.

  She thought of the little room she shared with two kitchen maids, the thin mattress on the iron cot, the freshly ironed heavy white sheets, cotton blankets, and breeze off the ocean. She thought of the breakfast she had not yet had, for the family must be served first. She thought of the money wrapped in a handkerchief and saved so carefully for her future.

  Bridget was not romantic. She knew better. Life was harsh, and she’d been foolish to think that would change. Jeb would be humiliated that he’d ever been seen in her presence. He’d believe the stories about her because they were told by gentlemen. Would Mr. Walkley and Mr. Rowwells lie?

  No, and how did they make fortunes? Being kind? No. By putting people like me in places like this.

  I will not cry, Bridget said to herself.

  But she cried, and it was not over Jeb, or the lost hopes for her life, or even the rats, but because Miss Devonny had not said a word in her defense.

  “Well, Walker Walkley,” she said to the rats, “you are a rat if there ever was one. You seized your chance for revenge. And now I surely would shove you down the stairs if I could ever get you to the top of one. As for Miss Devonny, she’ll probably marry you. And if that’s the case, she’ll get what she deserves. A rat.”

  So much traffic!

  Everybody who owned a car had decided to circle the old Stratton roads, make sure the ocean was still there, get a glimpse of summer to come.

  Annie biked on the shoulder to avoid being hit. Just because they were sight-seeing did not mean anybody drove slowly or carefully. The road wound around two huge horse chestnut trees on which kids had been carving initials for generations. From this distance, the Mansion had kept its aura. The towers still glistened in the sun. The great veranda, with its views of shore and beach, still looked down on her.

  She was blinded by tears, a rush of emotion so strong she could not believe it came from dreams on the sand. Oh, Strat! You were real, I know you were! I loved you, I know I did!

  A horn blared so hard and close that Annie all but rode her bike right into a battered, rusted-out old van, every window open, dripping with the faces of teenagers she didn’t know. They were laughing and pointing at her, their fingers too sharp and their mouths too wide. “Nice dress!” they yelled sarcastically. “Where’s the party? What’s your problem, girl?”

  She was wearing the morning gown. A simple dress by the standards of Harriett and Devonny, but in 1995—!

  She jerked the bike off the road and down a dirt footpath into the holly gardens, where green-spiked walls hid her. The van honked several more times but moved on without pursuing her. People didn’t like to get out of their cars, even at the beach.

  Long rows of tiny hand-sewn pleats. Long bands of delicate gauzy lace. Beneath them, the ribs of her corset.

  I was there. It happened. This is the dress that Bridget put me into! This is the—

  Bridget!

  A century too late, a full hundred years too late, she heard Strat’s voice, and understood. It was Bridget that Mr. Rowwells had accused, not Miss Lockwood.

  “Oh, no!” she cried out loud, as if the Strattons were there to hear her. “But I know what happened. I have to go back!”

  I wasn’t listening to Strat. Why don’t I ever listen? What’s the matter with me? I thought only of myself. I panicked. I was afraid of 1895. Afraid of what they could do to me, without my family, without my own world. I found an opening and I fled.

  They will do it to Bridget.

  Even the nicest people had spoken cruelly of the Irish. They would believe anything of an Irish maid. Bridget as murderer was easier than the truth, so they would let it stand.

  How vividly now Annie remembered the fury with which Matthew’s life had been taken; had to be taken; for Matthew was the one who
could not tell what he had learned.

  Annie could not hurry in the ridiculous morning gown. She peeled it off and stood in the underdress. Annie was still overdressed for the beach, though Harriett and Devonny would have fainted before appearing in public in an undergarment.

  Her bookbag was still strapped to the bike. She wadded up the morning gown, shoved it in with the gum wrappers and broken pencils and extra nickels, and leaped back on. “I’m coming, Bridget!” she yelled.

  But how will I do it? What wand or witch took me through when I fell? What magic stone or cry of the heart? Where exactly was I standing, and what exactly was I thinking and touching?

  I got in, she said to herself, and I came out, so I can go back. I have to.

  But it was no magic stone or glass that appeared in front of Annie.

  It was a police car, very 1995, its driver very angry, and its purpose very clear.

  They had finished the short subject of where Miss Lockwood had gone. Harriett and Devonny were unwilling to accept Strat’s idea that she had gone to another century.

  The young people were back on the veranda, as if nothing had happened. As if no lives had been changed. Mr. Rowwells had cornered Mr. Stratton in his library, and forced a discussion of Harriett’s property. Without her present, of course. Any hope that Mr. Rowwells was actually fond of her was gone.

  Harriett secured her morning hat to her hair with her favorite hat pin, which was six inches long with a pearl tip. She need not worry that Strat would see she was close to tears. Strat was close to tears himself.

  For a while, nothing was heard but the stirring of coffee.

  When Aunt Ada joined them, it seemed unlikely that the subject of century changes would come up again.

  Besides, Devonny was more interested in Matthew and Bridget than in broken hearts. “Do you really think Bridget approached Walk like that?” said Devonny. “Bridget was shy with Jeb. She wanted to be a lady. She was always copying my behavior.”

  “Do not contradict Mr. Walkley’s statement,” said Aunt Ada sharply. “He has explained what Bridget did and that is that. Where are your manners?”

  “I’m worried about Bridget,” said Devonny. “What will happen to her?”

  “There are prisons for women,” said Aunt Ada. “I expect she’ll be locked up forever. Or hanged. It’s better to hang them. Otherwise they have to be fed for decades.”

  “I should have spoken up,” said Devonny, knotting her skirt between her fingers. Aunt Ada yanked Devonny’s fingers up and glared at her for fidgeting. “I should have insisted on more proof,” said Devonny.

  “Mind your posture,” snapped Ada, smartly whacking the center of Devonny’s back.

  Devonny straightened. I hate you, she thought, and I like Bridget. I’ve heard rumors about Walker Walkley. He’s supposed to be very loose and free with the maids in his household. If Bridget came to his room and offered herself, would he say no?

  Devonny wondered what it meant, for a girl to offer herself. What exactly did they do next? Was it something she wanted to know? Yes. Desperately.

  I believe, Devonny said to herself, that Walker Walkley knows, and likes it, and he would laugh and say yes.

  So Walk is lying that Bridget tried to force herself on him. It was probably the other way around. Therefore Walker is also lying that she threatened him.

  And if I don’t believe that Bridget accosted Walk, I also don’t believe Bridget accosted Matthew. And I still don’t know to whom Matthew was bringing the sherry.

  Devonny was angry with herself for thinking too slowly. Why had she not brought this up when Bridget and the police were there? Why must she think things out hours later, possibly too many hours later to fix the situation?

  But even if I don’t believe Walk, she remembered, there is Mr. Rowwells. He saw Bridget push Matthew. He wouldn’t lie. You couldn’t have two gentlemen lying!

  Devonny thought of Harriett marrying Mr. Rowwells instead of Strat. It was disgusting. Devonny didn’t even want to be in the wedding party now. How would they have a good time? What difference would the world’s loveliest dress make, if you were marrying Clarence Rowwells? As for Strat, mooning over some creature he claimed lived in another world—he was worthless!

  Why had Miss Lockwood run away? When that finger had pointed, why had she thought it pointed at her?

  But Mr. Rowwells could not have confused Miss Lockwood, who would have been bare-legged and hatless at the time of Matthew’s murder, with Bridget in her big white starched apron.

  “She says people have orange juice every morning,” Strat offered.

  Devonny got oranges in her Christmas stockings, because they were so unusual and special. “Strat,” said his sister, “unless you want my coffee in your face, tell the truth.”

  “That’s what she said.”

  “Nobody cares what she said,” Devonny told him. “We care where she went, and where you were back when we needed you in the library, and who she is, anyhow.”

  “I was looking for her,” he said miserably. “I looked everywhere.”

  When he’d caught her, hidden in the shade of dancing trees, she’d turned with strange, slowed-down gestures, as if she had miles to go. Her hair had been piled so enticingly, her eyes so large and warm, her pretty lips half open.

  And then, he’d lost sight of her. She wavered, becoming a reflection of herself. She literally slipped between his fingers. He was holding her gown, and then he wasn’t. He’d had a strand of her hair, and then he didn’t.

  And then nothing of her had been present.

  Just Strat and the soft morning air.

  When he stopped shouting, he tried whispering, as if her vanishing were a secret, and he could pull her out. “Annie! Anna Sophia! Miss Lockwood.” And then, louder, achingly, “Annie! Annie!”

  She had not come. She was not there.

  The lump in his throat persisted. Perhaps he was getting diphtheria. He would rather have a fatal disease than a fatal love. At least people would be on his side. If he died of not having Miss Lockwood, his family would simply be scornful.

  He tried to laugh at himself, in love with a person who did not exist, but nothing was funny. His chest ached along with his throat, and his eyes blistered.

  He looked up and saw his sister’s disgust and Harriett’s sorrow. Her eyes too were blistered with pain. Strat wanted to hold Harriett’s hands, tell her he was sorry that he had failed her, that he was worthless, that he—

  But Mr. Rowwells arrived, and claimed his property, and Harriett Ranleigh rose obediently in the presence of her future husband and left.

  CHAPTER 9

  Policemen a hundred years ago had come in a high black carriage, worn no weapons, been nervous and unsure. The officer who got out of this gray Crown Victoria with its whirling blue lights was a man in charge. He was middle-aged, overweight and very angry. “Annie Lockwood?” he said grimly.

  She didn’t need to ask if time had gone on without her. It definitely had.

  “Just where have you been, young lady? There has been a search organized for you since late last night.”

  “Please,” said Annie, trying desperately to span her two centuries and her two problems. “I can’t talk to you now. I have to get back to—well, you see, a hundred years ago—”

  He popped the trunk and stuck her bike in with his rescue kit and blanket. “The beach closed last night at ten o’clock. We combed the sand, we searched the breakwaters. We had the Mansion opened up, we walked through every room, including the most dangerous, to see if you’d fallen through a floor. We’ve questioned each and every car to enter Stratton Point this morning, in case they were here yesterday and saw something.”

  Annie swallowed.

  “How much cop time do you think you wasted, young lady?”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “How much sleep do you think your mom or dad got last night?”

  She began to cry.

  “Your mother brought your school pi
ctures for us to show around. But we were right. You just went off, without letting anybody know where or why, the way stupid thoughtless teenagers do.” He opened the front door roughly, as if he would like to treat her that roughly, but he didn’t, and Annie got in.

  “So you were here all the time,” he said. “Ignored the sirens? Ignored everybody calling your name? Ignored the flashlights and the searchers? Would you like to know what I think of kids like you?”

  She knew already. And he was right. Kids like that were worthless.

  Her mind framed answers she didn’t dare say aloud: I wasn’t worthless! I fell through time. I really wasn’t here. I didn’t hide from you. I didn’t mean for you to waste all those cop hours.

  At the very same moment that a search party had been flashing its beams into the dark and moldering corners of an unoccupied ballroom, she had been dancing with Strat on its beautifully polished floor.

  “Who was with you?” said the cop. “Is he still here?”

  He was right about the pronoun: it had certainly been a boy. But explain Strat? When even Annie did not know whether he was still here? Or always here? Or never here?

  And what about Bridget? Time went on. The policeman had just made that clear. So time was also going on a hundred years ago, and whatever was happening to Bridget was happening now.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, trying not to sob out loud. “I’m sorry you had to waste time. I guess I—um—fell asleep on the sand.”

  Like he believed that.

  He not only took her home, he held her arm going up to the front door, as if she were a prisoner. She was afraid of him, and yet she was only going home. What was Bridget feeling, who might be hung? Did they have fair trials back then? Who would speak for Bridget?

  “Where have you been?” screamed her father, jerking her into the house. He was shaking. He tried to thank the policeman, but he was so collapsed with exhaustion and relief and fury that he couldn’t pull it off.

  “We’ve called every friend you ever had looking for you!” shrieked her mother. She was trembling.

  “I’m sorry,” said Annie lamely. Around her were the television and stereo, stacks of tapes for the VCR, ice maker clunking out cubes, dishwasher whining, her brother, Tod, sipping a Coke, wearing a rock star T-shirt … How was Annie supposed to tell where she had been?