The Time Travelers: Volume One Read online

  Walker Walkley caught the little Irish maid in the hallway and swung her into his room. “Mr. Walkley,” she protested, “I have work to do.”

  “Spend a little time with me first,” said Walk, putting his hands where Bridget did not even let Jeb put hands.

  Bridget removed his hands and glared at him.

  How pretty she was, fired up like that. Walk grinned. He put his hands right back where he wanted them to be.

  “Please, Mr. Walkley.” The maid struggled to be courteous. She could not lose her position.

  Walk laughed and continued. She’d enjoy it once they got started.

  Bridget had few weapons, but she used one of them. She spit on him. Her saliva ran down his face.

  Oh! it made Bridget so angry! America was perfect, but Americans weren’t. These men who thought she was property!

  “Touch me, Mr. Walkley,” said Bridget Shanrahan, “and I will shove you down the stairs and you’ll die like Matthew.”

  Walker Walkley wiped his cheek with his white handkerchief, nauseated and furious. She had made an enemy.

  And said a very dumb thing.

  “And are we prepared?” said Aunt Ada.

  “We are prepared.”

  “The little Lockwood creature is the answer to my prayers,” said Aunt Ada. “I needed a solution, and moments later, it occurred.”

  Ada prayed often, and read her Bible thoroughly. It was a rare occasion on which she felt that even God cared whether she had what she needed. Now, so late in life that she had reached the rim of despair, had a guardian angel finally appeared for her too?

  It was a nice thought. Ada studied her hands as if they were wands that accomplished things against nature. “Lust has power,” she said. “We’ll encourage the boy to enjoy himself. We need only an evening or two.”

  Their smiles slanted with the need for money.

  Miss Lockwood had been beautiful on the beach, the wind curving her hair against his face, but here in the ballroom Strat thought she was the loveliest female he had ever seen. The men were envious of him, and lined up for the chance to partner with her.

  She had not known any of the dances, but she’d proved a quick learner, willing to laugh at herself. Right there in the ballroom, without a blush, she let each partner teach her another step. She was so light on her feet. She and Strat had spun around the room like autumn leaves falling from trees: at one with the wind and the melody. Now she was dancing with Walk, and Strat was so jealous he could hardly breathe.

  “Strat, I have to talk to you,” said Devonny in his ear.

  Strat didn’t want to talk. He wanted to dance with Miss Lockwood now and forever. He didn’t want his little sister placing demands and awaiting explanations. He could not explain Miss Lockwood, he just couldn’t. It would sound as if he had had too much to drink or started on opium. Time travel, indeed; 1995, indeed.

  “Look at me, Strat, so I’ll know you’re on this planet. We have three subjects we have to cover.”

  Sisters were such a pain.

  “First, you have to be nice to Harriett. Don’t you see you’re destroying her?”

  He had not thought once of Harriett since he had met Miss Lockwood. He did not want to think of her now. If he looked Harriett’s way, he’d get back some reproachful expression. I haven’t made any promises. I haven’t even made any suggestions. I have nothing to feel guilty about, Strat told himself.

  Guilt swarmed up and heated his face.

  “Second, who is she, this Miss Lockwood?” Devonny tapped a silk-shod foot on the floor for emphasis.

  “She’s a friend, Dev,” he said, “and that’s all I’m going to say for now.”

  His sister looked at him long and hard.

  “What’s three?” he said quickly.

  “Matthew was murdered.”

  CHAPTER 6

  “Devonny, you mustn’t bother your little head about it,” said her brother. “It’s bad for you.” He smiled that infuriating male smile, telling her she was a girl and had to obey. Nothing got Devonny madder faster. This was when she knew she was going to wear trousers after all, and be fast, and bad, and scandalous. Show Father and Strat a thing or two.

  Which made her madder? Saying her head was little, or that Matthew’s death didn’t matter enough to bother?

  Men! They—

  But it was a new world, with new tools, and it occurred to Devonny she could go around her father and brother.

  Other hearts in that ballroom beat with love and hope, jealousy and pain. Devonny’s beat with terror and excitement. What would Father do to her? It would be worth it just to see!

  Devonny slipped out of the ballroom and crossed the Great Hall to the cloakroom. Here she approached the machine nervously. She did not often have the opportunity to touch the telephone. Young ladies wrote notes. Servants responded when the telephone rang, and servants took and delivered messages.

  Devonny gathered her courage.

  Harriett was left stranded. She had no partner. It was unthinkable. Strat was blind tonight, and Harriett was both furious and deeply humiliated. How they all looked at her, the other ladies; each of them prettier; and how they looked at Miss Lockwood, the prettiest of all.

  She saw Walker Walkley feeling sorry for her. Any moment now Walk would rescue her, and she hated it, that she was plain and needed rescue. How could Strat put her in this position! Why did there have to be Miss Lockwoods? Harriett hoped Miss Lockwood rolled down the hill and drowned in the ocean.

  Walk moved toward her from his side of the ballroom, and Mr. Rowwells approached from the opposite side. I don’t want to be pitied, thought Harriett, I want to be loved. I don’t want anybody to be kind to me. I’d rather be a spinster. An old maid.

  But then she would be like Aunt Ada. Mean to people because life had been mean to her.

  Oh, Strat, thought Harriett, fighting off tears she could not bear to have anybody see. Please remember me. Please love me.

  “My dear Miss Harriett,” said Mr. Rowwells, “might I have the pleasure of a stroll with you? Perhaps a turn on the veranda? The evening air is delightful.”

  Well, she would rather be rescued by Mr. Rowwells, who meant and who knew nothing, than by Walk, who knew everything. Harriett bowed slightly and rested her glove on his arm. Her guardian, Mr. Stratton senior, said that Mr. Rowwells was a fine schemer, an excellent capitalist. Mr. Rowwells had made a fortune in lumber, but one doubted he could make a fortune in his new venture. He actually thought mayonnaise could be put in jars and sold.

  Mr. Rowwells was trying to get investors, but men with money burst out laughing. Women needed things to do, so even if you could put mayonnaise in a jar, you’d just be taking away their chores. A woman with time on her hands was a dangerous thing. (Except of course women like Florinda, who could not be given chores in the first place, because of delicacy.)

  Mr. Rowwells chatted about small things and Harriett tried to be interested, but wasn’t.

  In June the garden air was so heavy with rose perfume that ladies were claiming to be faint from it. Harriett felt faint too, but not from perfume.

  Perhaps it is a good thing that I love books and knowledge, thought Harriett. I will go to college, since I cannot have Strat.

  She had never met a female who had attended such an institution. The mere thought of going away from home was so frightening that she felt faint all over again.

  I would be twenty-four when I emerge, and might as well be dead. Nobody will marry me if I’m that old.

  Harriett had been taught to hide her intelligence. She could of course imitate the first Mrs. Stratton, reading at home, becoming an expert on Homer and the Bible, able to recite Shakespeare and Milton and Wordsworth. But in exchange for being better educated than Mr. Stratton, Strat and Devonny’s mother found herself divorced and replaced.

  A very very bad part of Harriett had a solution to the problem of Miss Lockwood. She would introduce Miss Lockwood to Mr. Stratton senior. Even for him it wou
ld be quite an age difference—he was fifty now! But rapidly tiring of Florinda. Yes. Harriett would seize that flirty little Miss Anna Sophia and wrap her little hand inside Mr. Stratton’s great cruel fingers and—

  No. It was too nauseating. Harriett didn’t wish on anybody the prison of being wife number five for Mr. Stratton.

  I just want to be wife number one for Strat, she thought.

  Mr. Rowwells soldiered on, trying to find topics. Since Harriett was considering only the possible death or dismemberment of Miss Lockwood, Mr. Rowwells wasn’t getting anywhere.

  “What does interest you, my dear? Surely you and I have something in common!” Mr. Rowwells patted her hand. In situations like this, Harriett was always glad to have gloves on.

  “I am interested in scholarship, Mr. Rowwells. I wish to continue my education. I have thought of requesting Mr. Stratton to permit me to attend a women’s college.”

  “College?” repeated Mr. Rowwells. She had stunned him, and she liked that.

  “I would be well chaperoned,” explained Harriett, lest Mr. Rowwells think she was a guttersnipe like Miss Lockwood.

  “Capital idea!” he said. “I will encourage your guardian. And of course, Miss Ada would accompany you. You have a great mind, Miss Harriett.”

  What was wrong with God, to let a girl be born with brains instead of beauty?

  “I’m sure you are well acquainted with the classics,” said Mr. Rowwells. “Perhaps you could instruct me.”

  “Why, Mr. Rowwells, I would love to share my favorite books with you,” she said, and she almost meant it; she almost wanted to sit with him and discuss books, which were safe, instead of love, which was not. Harriett blushed, imagining what Strat and Miss Lockwood would talk of.

  “The color in your cheeks becomes you,” Mr. Rowwells complimented. “The color of the roses by the fountain.”

  Oh, how she wanted to look becoming.

  They walked to the far edge of the garden where no gaslights illuminated the darkness. “The moon is rising over the ocean, Harriett. It’s shining in your hair.”

  “It is?” said Harriett eagerly.

  * * *

  On the back stairs, Bridget was forced to step over and over on the bloodstains where Matthew had died. She could hardly put her foot there. Miss Ada had slapped her for showing tears in front of the guests. She had a handprint on her cheek now.

  I must think of nothing but service, Bridget told herself, nothing but doing my work, finishing the tasks, not looking where I put my shoe.

  But the cook had news.

  “What?” gasped Bridget. “Already? Matthew’s not cold yet, and Mr. Stratton’s told the family to leave?”

  “It’s true,” said the cook, who’d been crying, like all the staff.

  Mr. Stratton had to know that Matthew’s wife had nowhere to go. And no money to pay for it.

  “What a wicked man,” said Bridget. “They’re all wicked. Mr. Walkley is wicked.”

  “He try to yank you into his room?” said the cook knowingly.

  “I spit on him,” said Bridget.

  “You should have laughed and slipped off with a smile. He’ll get you for it.”

  Bridget had been sick with fear imagining herself out on the street. But if she had five babies, what would she do? She must think about them, not herself. “Young Mr. Stratton isn’t cruel,” said Bridget. “I’ll tell him about Matthew’s family. He won’t let them be put out.”

  “Glued to that girl, he is. Can’t hear a word being said. Poor Miss Harriett. She’s about to die herself. The only one in this family who could help is Miss Devonny. She has spunk.”

  Bridget went upstairs to refill the punch bowl. Beautifully gowned women and handsomely dressed men flirted and schemed and danced. Nobody saw Bridget because servants were invisible. The problem of Matthew had been made invisible, and soon the problem of Matthew’s family would be made invisible.

  Jeb, marry me, prayed Bridget. Mother of God, tell Jeb to marry me and take me away from these awful people.

  The man with the greatest temper also had the greatest bulk. Mr. Stratton senior had spent much of his fifty years consuming fine food and wine. He was so angry he could hardly see his son. “Stop prancing around with that girl, Strat. You know quite well, young man, what is expected of you.”

  “Father, please. She’s a wonderful person, she—”

  “The personality, or lack of it, in your little tramp doesn’t matter. You march back in there and spend the evening with Harriett.”

  Strat could not ignore Miss Lockwood. He had told her he would take care of her and he had meant it. He had never meant anything more. It terrified Strat to talk back to his father. How did Devonny do it so easily? “She isn’t a tramp, Father.”

  Hiram Stratton’s flat eyes drilled into his son’s. “Oh? Who are her parents? Where did she come from? Why is she unchaperoned?”

  Strat never considered mentioning another century to his father. He’d been beaten several times in childhood and had no desire to repeat the experience. Young men headed to Yale and expecting to control enormous fortunes could not run around babbling that they were in love with creatures from the next century. Forget whipping; he might find himself in an asylum chained to a wall.

  “Father, she was down on the beach. I realize I shouldn’t have befriended a stranger. But I was drawn to her. She’s a wonderful, interesting, beautiful—”

  His father gestured irritably. “Maids like Bridget exist for a man’s entertainment, Strat. No doubt that’s what your Miss Lockwood is, somebody’s maid sneaking around our beach on her day off. But a man enjoys himself quietly. He certainly does not offend a wealthy young woman who hopes to marry him.”

  Strat could not think.

  Thinking, actually, did not interest him in the slightest right now. His thoughts were so physical he was shocked by them. He could never have expressed them to his father. He did not know how he was going to express them to Miss Lockwood. And there was no way he could make a detour and put Harriett Ranleigh first.

  The lines in his father’s face grew deeper and harsher, as if his father were turning into a monster before his eyes. “Here are your instructions,” said his father in a very soft, very controlled voice. He leaned down, beard first, thrusting gray and black wire into Strat’s face. “Wipe that dream off your face and out of your heart. You go out there now, and ask Harriett to dance, and spend the remainder of this evening dancing with her and be sure that the two of you have made plans for tomorrow before you say good night. And your good night to Harriett Ranleigh is to be affectionate and meaningful. Do you understand me?”

  If he did not hold on to Miss Lockwood, she would fall back through. Like Cinderella, she would vanish at midnight, but she would leave no glass slipper, and he could never find her again. “Father,” he began.

  His father spoke so softly it was like hearing from God. “You will obey me.”

  I can’t! I love her too much. I would give up anything for her.

  “Answer me,” said his father.

  “Sir,” said Hiram Stratton, Jr., bowing slightly to his father, and escaping from the library, without adding either a yes or a no.

  The walls of the ballroom were lined not only with splintered mirrors, but with old women. Terrifying old. Annie did not think people got that old in 1995; or perhaps they got that old, but continued to look young. These women looked like a coven of witches: women with sagging cheeks, ditch-deep wrinkles, thin graying hair and angry eyes.

  They were the chaperons.

  Each was an escort to a beautiful young girl, and jealousy radiated from their unlovely bodies.

  The one who chaperoned Harriett had locked eyes with Annie. Behind her missing teeth and folded lips, the old woman was gleeful with knowledge Annie did not possess.

  The sexes were separated and stylized like drawings come to life. Yet in spite of how formal these people were, in spite of their manners and mannerisms, the room reeked emotion
, swirling beneath feet and through hearts.

  Strat led her through another dance, and she followed, and the room felt as thick as her brain. Thick velvet, thick damask, thick scent of flowers, thick fringe dripping from every drape.

  Strat himself seemed desperate, engulfed in some drama of his own, hiding it with manners. Slowly, he danced her out the glass doors and onto the veranda. Far off, where the village must be, not a single light twinkled.

  No electricity, thought Annie, waking from the trance of the ballroom.

  Strat had enough electricity for two. His eyes stroked her as his hands could not. “Let’s walk down the holly lane,” he said. “We have to talk about—”

  “Capital idea,” said Walk, suddenly appearing next to them, his smile as sly and gleeful as the chaperon’s. “Midnight! And a stroll. James! Miss Van Vleet! Miss Stratton! Richard! Strat here wants a midnight ramble under the stars.”

  “How delightful!” cried Miss Van Vleet.

  “Might I take your arm?” offered James to Miss Van Vleet.

  “Where is Harriett?” said Walk. His eyes were hot and full of meaning when he looked at Strat. “We mustn’t go without Harriett.”

  Strat flinched.

  “Miss Ranleigh is in the library with Mr. Rowwells,” said Aunt Ada. Her face was wrinkled like linen waiting for the iron. “Do go without her. She won’t mind at all.”

  The young people paired up. Nobody walked alone. It was unthinkable that a girl should be without a boy’s arm. How sweet they looked in the soft yellowy gaslight, like a sepia photograph on a relative’s wall.

  Walker Walkley took Devonny’s arm after all. His smile, like the crone’s, seemed to have more knowledge than a smile should.

  He’s sly, thought Annie. I don’t trust him.

  The weird enclosure of the stays kept her posture extremely vertical. Since she couldn’t bend at the waist, it was necessary to hang onto Strat when the party descended the steep hill.

  Perhaps I’m in both places at one time, thought Annie. Perhaps my 1995 self is turning off the television and getting ready for bed.