The Time Travelers, Volume 2 Page 4

  “She fell in love,” said Devonny, “with my brother, Strat. She came back a final time to rescue Strat from a terrible fate.”

  Maybe if Tod sort of skidded along the surface here, pretended this was virtual reality, he could flick a switch and be done.

  “You must take me with you,” said the girl. “My brother must be with you. Annie must have brought him home. I need him. He must save me.”

  “No,” said Tod. “She hasn’t dated anybody this year. She sure hasn’t brought anybody home. I don’t even know anybody named Strat.”

  The girl began to cry.

  Tod hated that; it was a crummy trick. “Don’t do that,” he snapped. “What does Strat need to save you from? Don’t even think about crying. Just give me facts.”

  “Marriage,” she said. “My father has chosen a dreadful man for me to marry. A man with—well, evil personal habits. A man who wants only my money.”

  “So?” said Tod. “Just don’t marry the guy. Just say no.”

  She looked at him.

  “It’s a big slogan in my day, Devonny. If somebody offers you drugs or sex or crime, you just say no.”

  “I am not in a position to say no to my father,” said the girl.

  “Sure you are. It’s America. Just say no.”

  “But I am a girl.”

  He was irritated. “Big deal. You’re half the population. Say yes, say no, make up your mind, I don’t see what your father has to do with it.”

  “It would not work. There are complexities. There is blackmail, and there are fortunes, and you are being as annoying as your sister. I need my brother, and I know you have him! Now take me home with you!”

  Take you home with me? thought Tod. Yeah, right. Like I’m gonna walk in the door to my house with a teenage girl in a long yellow prom dress and tell my mother we’re saving her from a bad marriage.

  Tod aimed for control over his blood and bone and brain tissue. Keeping himself unreachable, so he could just slide home, like a baseball player, he said, “Devonny, I can’t take you home. And I don’t think Annie brought your brother home. Unless he’s invisible. And even then, I don’t think she’d go off to Norway if she had some cute guy around.” He stepped backward, hoping to be on a parking lot again, with his car behind him.

  Didn’t happen.

  “Even now my father and Lord Winden are drawing up a contract to dispose of my assets, Mr. Lockwood. I will be forced into a wedding in only a month.”

  “What do you mean, dispose of your assets?”

  “The opening settlement will be two million dollars for Lord Winden.”

  “Wow. That should be enough to go around. Tell your father you want it. What could he do?”

  “Mr. Lockwood, you are not listening! He can do anything he wishes. I can do nothing. I need Strat.”

  “What could Strat do that you can’t?”

  “He’s a boy.”

  “You better not let my mother hear you talk like that, Dev,” said Tod. “She’d string you up. She hates when women have a poor self-image.”

  “I would love to hear your mother’s advice,” said Devonny. To his absolute horror, she knelt before him and clung to his hands. Her rose bracelet brushed his wrist. He could not bear the sight of her on her knees.

  “Take me back with you,” she cried, “and together we’ll find Strat. Then Strat and I will return to our Time and he will solve the nightmare in which I am caught.”

  Tod felt cornered out here in a meadow with nothing in sight but grass and flowers.

  “I’d stay in one of your guest rooms,” pleaded Devonny. “One of your extra maids could wait on me. You wouldn’t even have to seat me at your dining table. The footman could serve me in my room. Mr. Lockwood, I do beg of you.”

  “Dude,” said Tod. He blinked a few times. “Listen, Dev, if you have all this money, you don’t need anybody to bail you out. Just get your own house, buy your own car, pay your own insurance, and hey—you’re set.”

  “Oh, this is just like talking to your sister! Annie was so difficult, Mr. Lockwood. Your sister was obstructive and annoying.”

  “It’s good we agree on something. Now you gotta call me Tod.”

  She shook her head, which caused the long exotic curls to shake, and he wanted to run his finger up inside the cylinders of hair, and then he felt sick all over again, but it was not seasick, or carsick, it was some other sick entirely.

  “We haven’t been introduced,” she said primly.

  He yanked her to her feet. “Tod, Devonny. Devonny, Tod. There. We’ve been introduced. But even introduced, Dev, it wouldn’t work. I mean, like, my mom has better things to do. It would all be on me, and I personally don’t even like taking the dog for a walk.”

  “Please, Mr. Lockwood. I must find my brother. He is my only hope!”

  “Listen, Devonny, he isn’t there. As for me, I’ve started a new business and I’ve just figured out how to make money at it. I have customers now, and things to do. Bank accounts to open.”

  “That’s wonderful!” cried Devonny. “I love men like that.” She looked at him worshipfully. Never had a girl gazed at him like that. It wasn’t too bad.

  “I shall join you as soon as I pack my trunk,” Devonny said breathlessly. “I know this is why Time brought you to me, Mr. Lockwood.”

  Tod tried to imagine Devonny in the school cafeteria. In an age of unruly hair, hers was a work of art. In an age of dirty heavy sneakers, she wore white slippers. In an age of torn jeans and obscene T-shirts, she carried a parasol. “What would we tell people? Especially my parents. Dev, you don’t wanna marry the guy, don’t marry the guy.”

  “It isn’t that simple,” protested Devonny, crying again. Tod figured now her mascara would run and her makeup would look crummy, but then he realized that she wasn’t wearing makeup. He liked her for that. The whole face correction idea seemed pathetic and ridiculous to Tod. When the girls in school covered themselves with makeup, or when his mother and sister did, he made a point of gagging in front of them.

  “I’m gonna leave now,” said Tod. Assuming I can, he thought. What if Time decides?

  Tod was against that. A person should have complete control over his life. Well, I do, he told himself. I can do anything my sister can do, and she made it back and forth.

  “I thought you would be a knight in shining armor,” said Devonny. She did not touch her tears, but let them lie on her cheek and throat. “I thought you would save me. Why did you come if you weren’t going to save me?”

  “It isn’t like I meant to come,” said Tod.

  She looked stricken. As if he had slapped her. Fleetingly, Tod considered what his mother would do to him were he ever to raise a hand to a girl.

  He didn’t want any heavy thoughts here, or any responsibility. People had to be responsible for themselves. “You don’t need saving, Devonny. You just need guts.” Tod had no sympathy for weakness. “I’m going,” he told her.

  She held out her hands, and the flowery bracelet fell from one wrist, and her voice trembled on, saying more, but he stepped back, grabbed the pump handle, closed his eyes—and it worked. Her words followed, crying without sound, But I need you!

  The pain was worse this time. His vision and hearing and touch were torn apart and savaged. It went on and on, beyond counting, beyond belief. Through it all came the distorted syllables, jumbled and wrecked; But I need you!

  It was not going to end. He had refused help to a person who needed it, and this would be his hell: falling through the years, unable to get off at one of them.

  Time let him hit the edge of every stone and cliff.

  He was not alone in this passage. Other bodies and souls, shot with pain, were thrust past him and through him.

  But it ended.

  His eyes burned, as if he’d ignored sunglasses during a whole day of lying on the beach. When he managed to focus, an old pump, its paint peeling, was next to him, surrounded by plastic containers.

  His hea
d throbbed. He hoped aspirin was in the car. He hoped aspirin worked in situations like this.

  Tod looked toward the grass on which a girl had begged for help—his help—but there was no grass. Just a parking lot. No girl. Just his own car.

  Drops trickled from the rusty edge of the open spigot.

  Maybe he should drop the whole designer water idea.

  There was something in this water.

  THREE

  The meadow stretched to the sea. Tall grass, blown down by the wind, lay rumpled like a bed. Clouds scudded into other lives, to hang above other eyes.

  Had a boy in strange crude clothing, using strange rude speech, spun briefly through Time just to tell her, “No, nobody will save you”?

  Devonny stepped toward the pump, to touch it, and then snatched her hand back, as if it might burn. If she had made up that moment with Mr. Lockwood, perhaps there was insanity in the Stratton blood.

  She did not hear the clomping of horses coming, nor their windy breath, nor the gentle squeaking of leather saddles, nor the voices of the riders. When a hand touched her shoulder, Devonny cried out, spinning around, ready to fend off another century.

  Lord Winden was staring at her.

  And Gordon and Miles, with Flossie and a friend she had not expected today, Rose. How splendid they looked, in their formal riding costumes. And how foreign; how unknown to her. She thought: Am I half in Mr. Lockwood’s century? Am I entirely here?

  But that way lay madness.

  Rose dismounted and rushed to Devonny to hug and kiss her. It felt strange and wrong. What had Tod Lockwood done to her? What veil or mist had he dropped that she could not quite rejoin her time?

  “Oh, Devonny!” cried Rose. Her voice was loud and brittle. Devonny wanted to step away from it. “Such news! So thrilling!”

  “What news?” she said.

  Rose giggled. “Silly girl. That you and darling Lord Winden will be married! Oh, Devonny, I am so happy for you! Lord Winden has been telling us about his magnificent estate. Devvy, it has two hundred rooms.”

  “And no plumbing,” teased Flossie. Her eyes met Devonny’s and they tried to exchange messages, but Flossie’s situation was too complex; they needed time together, and words.

  “And in need of a new slate roof,” agreed Lord Winden. “But my bride and I shall remedy such problems.”

  At least Devonny would know where her money was going.

  “What are you doing here, so far from the house?” asked Rose. “This is such a remote little spot.”

  “On the contrary,” said Devonny, “it has a beautiful view. When we were little, Strat and I often played in this meadow.” This was untrue. When they were little, Devonny and Strat could not stand each other, and would never have dreamed of spending an instant in each other’s company.

  Devonny saw that she was going to construct a false childhood to tell Lord Winden, because she did not want him to have any part of her. But he will have part of me, she thought. That is marriage.

  Far away, on the narrow gravel road that was the only entrance to the Stratton estate, clattered a large open cart, pulled by two extremely heavy, slow horses. Men sat on the open cart, legs dangling. The syllables of their foreign tongue were faintly audible.

  Flossie said, “The stonecutters are done, Devonny. The fountain is complete.”

  If the stonework was done, Johnny would not return in that cart tomorrow. How would the lovers meet? Was it Devonny’s responsibility to ensure that Flossie and her beloved had time together?

  Time.

  Who, and what, was Time?

  “The turf has arrived,” said Flossie, as if either she or Devonny cared about this, “and the gardeners are unrolling it. Your dear father expects to turn the water on shortly. We shall have a garden party this evening to celebrate the beauty of the spraying fountain.”

  “And the joy of our upcoming nuptials,” said Lord Winden. He linked his arm in Devonny’s. “Miles, take my horse back with you. Miss Stratton and I will walk.”

  The rest of the party rode away. She was alone with him. A strange man from a strange country. Her fingers tightened on his arm, to hold herself up, and he liked that, and patted her hand. Devonny wanted to sob. Unlike Tod, Lord Winden would be pleased, because female weakness was pleasing to a man in Devonny’s century.

  It is the only century I have, she thought. If I do as that boy suggested and just say no, I will be a spinster. A thin beaten woman, alone with a needle and thread. Defective. People might study me briefly to see what’s wrong with me, but then they’ll laugh, and turn away, and occupy themselves with interesting people. “Why don’t you marry an English girl, Winnie?”

  He smiled at her. A smile she would share with Lisette. “I fear,” said Hugh-David, “that English girls who are suitable are as penniless as I.”

  “An English girl would understand how you live and what the rules are, Winnie.”

  “I shall teach you the rules. Your father assures me that you comprehend your marriage vows. You will obey me.”

  The meadow went steeply uphill. She caught her skirts in her right hand, to keep from tripping. “The Stratton family, by and large, does not care for obedience, Winnie. One does not accumulate millions of dollars by obeying.”

  “The first thing in which you will obey is this, Miss Stratton. You will not address me as Winnie.”

  “I think it’s a sweet nickname.”

  “No, you don’t. You think it will provoke me, and you are correct. Do not use it again.”

  She saw their lives together. A verbal battle, in which she must always surrender. She would address him as “sir,” then, as if he were a stranger at a ball. “How old are you, sir?”

  “I am thirty,” he said, and to Devonny this was as terrifying as another century.

  “I am afraid,” she admitted, and hated herself for it.

  “You are very young. But you will love England. My mother is difficult, but if you leave all decisions to her, and if she continues to run the houses herself, you will have no problems. And because you are very beautiful, Society will accept you in spite of your being an American.”

  Society, in London and New York, worshipped beauty. They painted, photographed, wrote about and loved a beautiful girl.

  “It’s pagan, isn’t it?” said Devonny. “If we were really Christian, we would not care about beauty. But we are not Christian. We worship the body. We adore a beautiful face. It, and not God, is first.”

  He was shocked. “Of course we are Christian!”

  “We go to church,” agreed Devonny.

  They were the same height, and their eyes met. He had beautiful eyes: large and gray and calm, with long lashes and straight-across eyebrows.

  She said, “I don’t want to wear a borrowed gown meant for somebody else. I might end up in a life meant for somebody else. I even think you want somebody else.”

  “My dear, if I were not in great need of money, I should not be taking this step. Winden is not an easy house to maintain. I must put coal in fifty fireplaces, pension my old gamekeepers and nannies, pay cooks and scullery maids, gardeners and yardmen and stable hands. I must maintain carriages and horses.” He smiled again. His was a useful smile, much like a signature on the bottom of a contract. “Think of this as your gift to English civilization. You, and you alone, will save this piece of history, Winden Castle.”

  “I am so sorry,” said Devonny, “that the many civil wars of England did not result in the destruction of Winden Castle.”

  He burst out laughing.

  His laugh was as charming as his accent, and she nearly caved in, nearly let herself like him a little, but she reminded herself that in his description of expenses, Lord Winden was leaving out a great deal. He must have his own tailor, of course, and gambling money. He must have his mistress, and she must have jewels and pleasures. He must be able to go to Paris or even India when the mood took him. And would Devonny go along, or would he leave her with his difficult mother at
this castle with its leaking roof and no plumbing?

  “It will not be so unhappy as you picture it,” he said to her. “I will not be unfair.”

  Flossie will elope for true love, thought Devonny, and I will wed a man who will not be unfair. “After we are wed,” she said tiredly, “when will we make our first visit back to America?”

  “Back to America?” he said incredulously. “My dear, once is enough.”

  The sun was setting. The newly laid turf was emerald green and the sky a painting in purple.

  The entire party—her father and stepmother, Florinda; Flossie and her parents, Mr. and Mrs. Van Stead; Rose; and the three Englishmen, Lord Winden, Gordon and Miles—gathered around the new fountain.

  Little boys carved of stone cavorted beneath spray that came from the mouths of dolphins. Circles of sparkling water were tossed into the air, and a spout rose in the middle, casting delicate rainbows.

  “And now,” said Lord Winden, “another thing of great beauty. It sparkles almost as much, Mr. Stratton, as your fountain.”

  He opened an old leather box held like a platter on the palms of his manservant’s hands.

  Resting on ancient crushed velvet was a vast necklace, a throat protector, with hundreds of diamonds.

  Flossie gasped.

  Rose shrieked.

  The ladies crowded forward, making little cries of delight. Devonny’s stepmother removed the delicate cameo that Devonny was wearing, and carefully lifted Devonny’s hair from her neck. Devonny felt as if her neck were being prepared for a sword, not a jewel.

  “Granny’s pebbles,” said Lord Winden, enjoying the commotion. He and Florinda fastened it around Devonny’s neck. Diamond ribbons hung from a diamond-encrusted band, utterly hideous and utterly magnificent.

  It’s my collar, thought Devonny. I’m his dog, he’s my master.

  “Oh, Devonny!” cried Rose, looking adoringly at Lord Winden. “In such a necklace, surely you will meet the Queen.”

  “The necklace is very old,” said Lord Winden. “Granny will tell you the history, but it’s been around forever. Everybody’s worn it.”