“An excellent book,” he said. “The Decline and Fall.”
“Edifying and instructive,” I said, and went up to bed.
“And kiss me, Kate! We will be married a Sunday.”
Petruchio
CHAPTER 22
Inherent Optimism of Time Travel—An Early Departure—A Problem—Gladys and Gladys—Finch Is Missing—Anecdotes of Cats’ Maternal Resourcefulness—A Delayed Departure—Eavesdropping—Cabbages—Verity Is Missing—Baine Quotes Shakespeare—Illiteracy Laws Proposed—The Mystery of the Waterlogged Diary Solved—A Premature Departure
I felt better in the morning. When I came down with Cyril at six, the rain had stopped, the sky was blue, and the wet grass glittered like diamonds.
And time travel is inherently hopeful. Failing to fix it once, you get innumerable other chances, or at least somebody does, and a week from now, or a year, when the forensics expert finally managed to decipher the diary, Carruthers or Warder or some addled new recruit could come back on the fifteenth and see to it that Mr. C made his entrance on cue.
We hadn’t succeeded, but at this very moment they might have solved the Mystery of Waterloo and self-correction. At this very moment T.J. and Mr. Dunworthy might be sending someone through to intercept me on my way to Oxford’s railway station and keep me from meeting Terence and mucking up his love life. Or to separate Professor Peddick and Professor Overforce.Or to stop Verity from wading into the Thames and rescuing Princess Arjumand in the first place. Or to send me to World War I to recover from my time-lag.
The cat would swim to shore, Terence would meet Maud, and the Luftwaffe would bomb London. And I would never meet Verity. Small price to pay for saving the universe. Well worth the sacrifice.
And I wouldn’t feel any loss because I wouldn’t ever have met her. I wondered suddenly if Terence did, if he knew on some level that he hadn’t met his true love. And if he did, what did he feel? Mawkish sorrow, like one of his Victorian poems? Or a gnawing of some need unsatisfied? Or just a grayness to everything?
I took Cyril out to the stable. Princess Arjumand had come down with us, and she stalked ahead across the wet grass, her tail in the air, coming back periodically to wind herself around Cyril’s hind legs and my ankles. There was a sound over by the stable, and the big doors began to creak open.
“Hide,” I said, scooping up Princess Arjumand and ducking back into the shelter of the kitchen door. The groom, looking like he’d just been awakened, pushed the doors open, and the driver led two horses, hitched to the carriage, out. The carriage to take Professor Peddick and Colonel Mering to the station.
I looked toward the house. Baine was bringing out the luggage and setting it on the front steps. Professor Peddick stood behind him in his academic gown and mortarboard, holding his kettle of fish against his stomach and talking to Terence.
“Come along,” I whispered to Cyril and started toward the side of the stable. Princess Arjumand wriggled wildly in my arms, trying to get free, and I let her down. She took off like a shot across the lawn. I led Cyril in the groom’s door.
“Make it look like you’ve been here all night,” I said, and Cyril promptly went over to his burlap sacking, turned round three times, flopped down, and began to snore loudly.
“Good boy,” I said, and let myself out of the stable. And collided with Terence.
“Have you got Cyril?” he said.
“I just brought him down,” I said. “Why? Is something wrong? Did Mrs. Mering see me?”
He shook his head. “Baine came and knocked me up this morning and said Colonel Mering was ill and would I accompany Professor Peddick to Oxford. Seems he caught a chill yesterday fishing for trout, and Mrs. Mering wants to make certain Professor Peddick makes it home. Good idea, actually. He’s likely to spot a hill that reminds him of the Battle of Hastings or something and get off the train. I thought I’d take Cyril. Thought it would be a bit of a holiday for him from—” he stopped and started again, “—especially as he didn’t get to go to Coventry yesterday. Is he in the stable?”
“Next to the hay bales,” I said, but when he opened the groom’s door, Cyril was standing just inside, wagging his pudgy body.
“Would you like to take a journey by rail, old man?” Terence said, and the two of them set off happily for the house.
I waited till the carriage had set off and Baine had gone back into the house and then legged it out to the laburnum arbor before the groom came yawning back to the stables, and then went out through the herbaceous border and across the croquet lawn to the gazebo.
There was someone in it. I circled round the weeping willow and came up behind the lilacs. A dark figure was sitting hunched on one of the side benches. Who would be sitting out here at this hour? Mrs. Mering, hunting for ghosts? Baine, catching up on his reading?
I parted the lilac branches so I could see better, sending a shower of water over my blazer and flannels. Whoever it was, they had a cloak wrapped around them and a hood pulled up over their head. Tossie? Waiting for a rendezvous with her life-changing lover? Or the mysterious Mr. C himself?
I couldn’t see the figure’s face from there. I needed to be on the other side of the gazebo. I carefully let go of the branches, dousing myself again, and stepped back squarely on Princess Arjumand.
“Mrowrrrr!” she yowled, and the figure darted up, clutching the cloak. The hood fell back.
“Verity!” I said.
“Ned?”
“Mreer!” Princess Arjumand said. I scooped her up to see if I’d hurt her. “Mere,” she said, and began to purr.
I carried her round the lilacs and over to where Verity was standing. “What are you doing out here?” I said.
Verity looked as pale as one of Mrs. Mering’s spirits. The cloak, which must have been an evening cloak of some kind, was drenched, and under it she had on her white nightgown.
“How long have you been out here?” I said. Princess Arjumand was squirming. I put her down. “You didn’t have to report in. I told you I’d do it when I brought Cyril down. What did Mr. Dunworthy say about—” and saw her face. “What is it?”
“The net won’t open,” she said.
“What do you mean, it won’t open?”
“I mean, I’ve been out here for three hours. It won’t open.”
“Sit down and tell me exactly what happened,” I said, indicating the bench.
“It won’t open!” she said. “I couldn’t sleep, and I thought the sooner we reported in, the better, and I could be back before anybody got up, so I came out to the drop, and the net wouldn’t open.”
“The drop’s not there?”
“No, it’s there. You can see the shimmer. But when I step into it, nothing happens.”
“Could you be doing something wrong? Are you sure you were standing in the right place?”
“I’ve stood in a dozen different places,” she said impatiently. “It won’t open!”
“All right, all right,” I said. “Could someone have been there? Someone who might have seen you? Mrs. Mering, or Baine, or—”
“I thought of that. After the second time, I walked down to the river and out to the fishpond and over to the flower garden, but no one was there.”
“And you aren’t wearing something from this era?”
“I thought of that, too, but this is the nightgown I brought through in my luggage, and, no, it hasn’t been mended or had a new button sewn on.”
“Maybe it’s you,” I said. “I’ll try.”
“I hadn’t thought of that,” she said more cheerfully. “The next drop should be any minute.”
She led me out of the gazebo and around to the side to a patch of grass next to a cluster of pink peonies. There was already a faint glitter to the grass. I hastily checked my clothes. Blazer, flannels, socks, shoes, and shirt were all the ones I’d worn through.
The air shimmered, and I stepped into the very center of the grass. The light began to grow. “Is this what happened when you tried i
t?” I said.
The light abruptly died. Condensation glittered on the peonies.
“Yes,” Verity said.
“Perhaps it’s my collar,” I said, unfastening it and handing it to her. “I can’t tell mine from the ones Elliott Chattisbourne loaned me.”
“It’s not your collar,” Verity said. “It’s no use. We’re trapped here. Just like Carruthers.”
I had a sudden vision of staying here forever, playing croquet and eating kedgeree for breakfast and boating on the Thames, Verity trailing her hand in the brown water and looking up at me from under her beribboned hat.
“I’m sorry, Ned. This is all my fault.”
“We’re not trapped,” I said. “All right. Let’s be Harriet and Lord Peter and examine all the possibilities.”
“I’ve already considered all the possibilities,” she said tightly. “And the only one that makes any sense is that it’s all breaking down, like T.J. said it would.”
“Nonsense,” I said. “It takes years for an incongruity to collapse the continuum. You saw the models. It may be breaking down in 1940, but not a week after the incongruity.”
She was looking like she wanted to believe me.
“All right,” I said, sounding more confident than I felt. “You go back to the house and get dressed before you compromise us both and I have to marry you.”
That made her smile, at least. “And then have breakfast, so Mrs. Mering won’t think you’re missing and send out a search party for you. After breakfast, tell her you’re going sketching and come back out here and wait for me. I’m going to go find Finch and get another opinion.”
She nodded.
“This is probably nothing, a glitch, and Warder just hasn’t noticed it yet. Or maybe she’s shut down all return drops till she gets Carruthers back. Whatever it is, we’ll get to the bottom of it.”
She nodded again, a little more cheerfully, and I took off for the Chattisbournes’, wishing I believed anything I’d just said, and that the Victorians hadn’t lived so far apart.
A maid in a ruffled apron and cap answered the door.
“Gladys, I need to speak to Mr. Finch, the butler,” I said, when I was able to catch my breath. I felt like Professor Peddick’s runner from the battle of Marathon who’d run all the way to Sparta. He’d died, hadn’t he, after delivering his message? “Is he here?”
“I’m very sorry, sir,” the maid said, dropping an even worse curtsey than Jane’s. “Mr. and Mrs. Chattisbourne are not at home. Would you wish to leave your card?”
“No,” I said. “It’s Mr. Finch I wish to speak to. Is he here?”
She had clearly not been briefed for this contingency.
“You may leave your calling card, if you wish,” she said, and held out a small silver plate embossed with curlicues.
“Where did Mr. and Mrs. Chattisbourne go?” I persisted. “Did Mr. Finch drive them?”
She looked completely undone. “Mr. and Mrs. Chattisbourne are not at home,” she said, and shut the door in my face.
I went round to the kitchen and knocked on the door. It was answered by another maid. This one had on a canvas apron and a kerchief and was armed with a potato peeler.
“I need to speak to the butler, Mr. Finch, Gladys,” I said.
“Mr. and Mrs. Chattisbourne aren’t here,” she said, and I was afraid she was going to be equally unforthcoming, but she added, “They went over to Donnington. To the St. Mark’s Fancy Works Sale.”
“It’s Mr. Finch I need to speak to. Did he accompany them?”
“No,” she said. “He’s up to Little Rushlade, buying cabbages. He left this morning carrying a big basket to fetch them home in.”
“When?” I asked, wondering if I could catch up with him.
“Before breakfast. It was scarcely light out. What’s wrong with Farmer Gamm’s cabbages down the road I don’t know, but he says only the best for Mrs. Chattisbourne’s table. I say one cabbage is as good as another.” She made a face. “It’s three hours’ walk at the least.”
Three hours’ walk. There was no point in going after him, and he wouldn’t be back soon enough to justify waiting. “When he gets back, would you be good enough to tell him that Mr. Henry from the Merings’ was here and to please come see him at once?”
She nodded. “Though I should imagine he’ll be all tuckered out by the time he gets back. Why he should have decided to go today, after the night we had, I don’t know. Mrs. Marmalade had her kittens last night, and a time we had finding out where she’d hid them.”
I wondered if the rules against discussing sex didn’t apply to the servant classes, or if once the kittens were a fact, they became an acceptable topic.
“Last time it was the root cellar,” she said, “and once their eyes are open, you can never find them all to drown them. And the time before we never did find where she’d hid them. That Mrs. Marmalade’s a sly boots, she is.”
“Yes, well, if you’d just please give him my message as soon as he gets back,” I said, putting on my boater.
“The time before that, it was Miss Pansy’s sewing box. And the time before that the linen drawer in the upstairs cupboard. The sly boots know you’ll try to take their kittens, you know, and so they hide them in the most peculiar places. When the Merings’ cat had her kittens last winter, she hid them in the wine cellar and they didn’t find them for nearly three weeks! Christmas Day it was they finally found them, and what a time catching them all. When I was in service at the Widow Wallace’s, the cat had her kittens in the oven!”
I managed to get away after several more anecdotes about resourceful cat mothers, and hotfooted it back to the gazebo.
At first I didn’t see Verity, and I thought perhaps she’d tried it again while I was gone and been successful, but she was on the other side of the gazebo, sitting under a tree. She was wearing the white dress I’d first seen her in, and her neck was bent gracefully over her sketchbook.
“Any luck?” I said.
“Nothing.” She got to her feet. “Where’s Finch?”
“Off buying cabbages in a neighboring village,” I said. “I left a message for him to come to Muchings End as soon as he gets back.”
“A message,” she said. “That’s a good idea. We could try and send a message.” She looked speculatively at her sketchbook. “You don’t have any paper you brought through with you, do you?”
I shook my head. “Everything I brought through was washed away when the boat capsized. No, wait. I’ve got a bank note.” I got it out of my pocket. “But what do we write with?”
“We take the chance that a milliliter or so of carbon is a nonsignificant article,” she said, holding up her charcoal pencil.
“That’s too thick,” I said. “I’ll go back to the house and fetch a pen and ink. When’s the next rendezvous?”
“Now,” Verity said, and pointed at the shimmering air.
There wasn’t time to race to the house and back, let alone scrawl, “Can’t get through,” and our coordinates. “We’ll need to wait till next time,” I said.
Verity was only half-listening to me. She was watching the growing glow in the grass. She stepped into the center of it and handed me her sketchbook and pencil.
“You see?” she said. The glow immediately dimmed. “It still won’t open,” and disappeared in a shimmer of condensation.
Well, and that was that. The continuum hadn’t broken down, at least not yet, and we weren’t trapped here. Ah, well, it was probably for the best. I truly did hate kedgeree, and croquet matches were deadly. And if St. Michael’s was any indication, the late summer would bring on hordes of jumble sales and fêtes.
I looked at my pocket watch. It was half past IX. I needed to get back to the house before somebody saw me and asked me what I was doing loitering out here, and with luck I might still be able to get some devilled kidneys or smoked kippers from the Stag at Bay.
I started for the rockery, and nearly ran into Baine. He was standing lookin
g grimly out over the Thames, and I scanned the water, looking for Princess Arjumand out in the middle of it treading water with her white paws.
I didn’t see her, but Baine was going to see me in a moment. I ducked back into the lilacs, trying not to rustle any leaves, and nearly stepped on Princess Arjumand.
“Muir,” she said loudly. “Mrowr.”
Baine turned and looked straight at the lilacs, frowning.
“Mere,” Princess Arjumand said. Shhh, I said silently, putting my finger to my lips. She began rubbing up against my leg, meowing loudly. I stooped to pick her up and knocked against a dead branch. It snapped off, its brittle leaves rattling sharply.
Baine started toward the lilacs. I began thinking up excuses. A lost croquet ball? And what was I doing playing croquet by myself at nine o’clock in the morning? Sleepwalking? No, I was fully dressed. I looked longingly back at the gazebo, gauging the distance and time to the next rendezvous. Both too far. And, knowing Princess Arjumand, she’d saunter in at the last minute and cause another incongruity in the continuum. It would have to be a lost croquet ball.
“Mire,” Princess Arjumand said loudly, and Baine raised his arms to part the lilac bushes.
“Baine, come here immediately,” Tossie said from the tow-path. “I wish to speak to you.”
“Yes, miss,” he said, and went over to where she was standing, dressed in ruffles, tucks, and lace, and holding her diary.
I took advantage of the distraction to scoop Princess Arjumand up and step farther into the depths of the lilacs. She snuggled against my chest and began purring loudly.
“Yes, miss?” Baine said.
“I insist that you apologize to me,” Tossie said imperiously. “You had no right to say what you did yesterday.”
“You are quite right,” Baine said solemnly. “It was not my place to express my opinions, even though they were solicited, and I do apologize for speaking as I did.”
“Meeee,” Princess Arjumand said. In listening, I had forgotten to keep petting her, and she put her paw gently on my hand. “Mooorre.”
Tossie looked round, distractedly, and I backed farther out of sight behind the bushes.
To Say Nothing of the Dog Page 44
