Time of Her Life

by Josephine Scott

  Suddenly Abigail remembered the woman from the ball: Not I, for they say he is a cruel man with a taste for hurting women. What did she mean?

  "I do not know from where you came, or why you are here with me, but those who offer their bodies are wanton hussies and are dealt with in the time-honoured way, madam." The last word was said with sarcasm and malice. The gleam of lust was back again - this man did indeed have a taste for hurting women. Abigail was suddenly very cold. His come trickled down her thigh, cool and sticky, and she became aware of a real tinge of fear for the first time since she had started visiting Castle Danverson.

  But underneath the fear was the excitement of yet another new experience, and she knew that even if she could see herself in the mirror, she wouldn't. Wouldn't send herself dizzyingly flying forward through hundreds of years. To safety.

  Your choice. You vowed to take whatever was given to you in this time no matter what.

  But a birch? Fear sat coppery-tasting in her mouth, her body shivering despite the fire. She could not see Lord Danverson, but she sensed him standing very still, very tense, very excited, and wondered again what was to happen. One thing was sure, she could not twist this man around her finger as she had done with others, oh so many others.

  The door opened again and the small boy's voice said, "The birch, sire."

  The door closed. Lord Danverson had not spoken. Abigail stared at the rich hangings of the four-poster bed, stared at the carved headboard with its cornucopia of fruit and birds, felt rather than saw him walk around her, eyeing her carefully.

  "Now, madam, we will deal with wanton hussies who offer themselves to their Lord." A thousand bees stung her at once as the birch connected with her bare bottom. She cried out, gasping in pain and shock when it landed again and again.

  "In my territory, women are taught to obey their men in all things, and that, madam, includes the question of who he is to take to his bed." Again and again the many twigs found her, the tiny buds causing their own pain, the sharp wet twigs flexible enough to bend on impact, to send fire through her. Abigail had never known such a thing, no one had ever hurt her. She fought the pain, fought the bonds, but he went on birching her, forcing her into the post, her pubis grinding against the carving as she tried to squirm away from the stinging biting burning pain. Tears coursed down her face, tears of helplessness as much as pain, cursing herself for her stupidity. Never get out of sight of the mirror! she told herself, crying out as the birch found her again.

  "My sentence is always the same for those who commit misdemeanours here, madam." A pause in the agony, just his relentless voice lecturing her on the wilful nature of her crime. Lord Danverson was not a man to be crossed at any time!

  Oh let that be it! she pleaded and prayed silently, waiting, quivering, hurting, as he walked backwards and forwards, his slippers hushing on the wooden floor.

  "My sentence for wayward hussies, women who should know better, is 50 strokes of the birch. Madam, you have had 25. There are 25 to go."

  She was hurting, surely he had drawn blood! No one could hurt this much and not bleed!

  "Stand and wait." She had no choice, hands bound round the post as they were. Tears continued to pour down her face and she longed to wipe them away.

  "Sire -"

  "Be silent! It is not done for a woman to entice a man in such a way - no respectable woman! You came with no one, I asked them all! You belong to no one! Did you come with the intention of finding my room? Be warned, wench, I do not consort with wanton women, but it is midsummer and you intrigued me. Now you will pay the price of that intrigue, whoever you are."

  Abigail bit her lips, afraid of spilling the truth. Not that Lord Danverson would believe that she had come from hundreds of years in the future anyway.

  He began to birch her again, this time the birch found her thighs and legs. The pain was intense. Abigail struggled as hard as she could, crying out her despair and fear. Suddenly, against all the odds, the girdle gave way and she was free. She looked at Lord Danverson, registered his surprise shock and outrage, cast one despairing look into the mirror and was ...

  NOW

  Back in her room.

  The mirror glared at her, defying her to look into it to see the reddened eyes and streaked face she could feel. Before then -

  No, not you, mirror! The other one, the safe one.

  Abbey looked at herself in the full-length mirror, saw the vivid red marks, wondered why she wasn't bleeding. How could she be so hurt and not bleed?

  I shouldn't have let him get that close, or get myself that far from the mirror! I shouldn't have let him bind me, I should not have ... she raved at herself silently.

  But I did. And now I'm suffering. Oh it hurts! Can't sit, lie or stand properly - fool, Abbey, fool!

  She hurried into the bathroom and stood under the shower, washing away odours, some of the soreness, and Lord Danverson's come. As she showered, she thought.

  His come. I have a problem. This is my problem. All philosophers and scientists and those who should know about such things, say if we travel back in time and disrupt in the slightest way any particle of that time, if we consume food, water, even air, we disturb future generations. Food that we have taken should and could have been given to another. If that person died for lack of it then a whole generation may not appear, which would alter the future.

  I carry a man's sperm within me. I carry what could be his heirs.

  Yet the world I come back to ...

  Is the same.

  As far as I know.

  Out there perhaps is a strange gap in a family tree, a line that never happened, a dynasty which did not occur. A genius of invention that was not invented.

  Who can say? I have no way of telling.

  I only know this.

  I come back to a world I know is identical to the one I left.

  I come back at the moment I left it, even though I might be gone for hours.

  I come back... - Satisfied.

  NOW

  Abbey pushed open the door to the offices of Brooks Wilkins & Co., and walked in, greeted by the familiar smell of old dust, mouldering papers, pink tape and polish.

  "Morning, Abbey, nice weekend?" The bright bubbly young girl behind the reception desk smiled through shocking-pink lipstick as Abbey walked in.

  "Hi Jane. Not bad, how about you?"

  "Oh, good, good. Ron took me to see that film at the Odeon. You know, the new Dracula one."

  Abbey paused, resting her shoulder bag on the reception desk, pushing a few slit envelopes out of the way.

  "Any good, is it?"

  "Sure is. There's this scene -" the switchboard buzzed angrily. "Oh damn! Starting early this morning." She turned away. "Tell you later. Good morning, Brooks Wilkins & Co., can I help you?"

  Abbey hurried up the stairs to her small office, waving to the other secretaries as she passed their room.

  "Hi Abbey, hey, you look tired, heavy weekend?"

  "Sure was, Sue. Catch you later."

  Abbey dropped her bag behind her desk and went to struggle with the old sash window which always stuck, as it did again today. What happened to the theory that wood swelled in damp weather and dried out in hot weather? This window stuck no matter what was outside, rain, hail or sun.

  It was stiflingly hot in the small room, the spider plant on top of the filing cabinet nodded sagely as the summer breeze came in the open window. Abbey sank down in her chair and took a mirror out of her personal drawer. She was tired. Today her black hair had lost some of its lustre, dulled by dust and heat, perhaps, despite a good shampoo in the morning, and her dark blue eyes were encircled with dark rings. She put the mirror away, pulled the cover off the machine and looked at the desk. Mr Wilkins had been busy already, a tape was waiting for her on top of a pile of files. Better get going, I suppose.

  Before she could put her earphones into her ears, the telephone rang, startling her. God, nerves are bad.

  "Abbey, Kenneth Thompson o
n the line."

  "Right."

  "Hi Abbey, busy?"

  "Hello, Kenneth, yes, busy as always. How can I help?"

  "Well, this is a lunch invite. How about going out to the Patson Motel for lunch, pick you up about 1:30?"

  "Fine."

  "Good, see you later."

  Abbey replaced the phone and looked at the screen. Damn, if she had entertained any idea there was a lunch date in the offing, she wouldn't have travelled last night! Now look: honour bound to go out - "keep the clients happy, Abigail" she could almost hear Mr Wilkins saying before she got to his room to tell him. Lunch, and she had to sit still despite her lines and soreness left from her experience!

  A balding head wearing glasses peered around the door.

  "Morning, Abigail."

  "Good morning, Mr Wilkins. Kenneth Thompson just phoned to invite me to lunch. I was about to come and tell you. Is that all right?"

  "Of course. Keep the clients happy, Abigail. See if you can secure some financial work from him, on top of the boring old accident stuff."

  "I'll try."

  "I have to be in court in half an hour. Take all calls for me, will you?"

  "Of course, Mr Wilkins."

  That accounted for the early pile of work. Mr Wilkins was too conscientious to go off to court for a morning without leaving his secretary a considerable amount of work. Abbey sighed, switched on her machine and picked up the earphones again.

  She was deep in some complicated instructions to counsel when Jane put her head around the door, startling her. God, my nerves, she thought angrily. Must be jangling from yesterday!

  "Abbey, there's a new client downstairs wants to see Mr Wilkins urgent, and I don't know what he's done with his diary."

  "Okay, Jane, I'll see to it."

  Abbey pushed back her chair and went into Mr Wilkins" dusty crowded office, avoiding the black japanned gold-lettered boxes (death to many pairs of tights in the past) and searched the desk for the diary, unearthing it from beneath a pile of photographs of a crash, corpse still in place. She averted her gaze and wondered why. They were only monochrome images after all.

  Much as I viewed the past, until I got the mirror. Now I know it's -

  In reception, Abbey stopped dead as if struck by a bolt of lightning.

  The woman who was in the act of rising from the padded bench also stopped. Recognition flew between them. She was dark-haired, wearing a blue suit with a gold blouse, and her eyes were flashing with curiosity.

  "I don't remember seeing you before." Abrupt, almost curt.

  "I... I've not long moved here. I'm Mr Wilkins" secretary."

  "I do not remember seeing you before!"

  "No, I. .. come from . . . far away just for the ball My Lord's reputation has spread some distance away"

  "Did you see my Lord's prowess with the falcon in the hunt today?"

  "I would rather see my Lord's prowess in bed at night!"

  And she had and it had been - an experience.

  "I'm sure I've seen you somewhere before." The woman frowned. Abbey almost spoke and then bit her tongue, hard.

  "Mr Wilkins is in court this morning, but he has a free period this afternoon, three-thirty. Would you like to come and see him then?"

  "Yes, that should be all right."

  "Your name is - ?"

  "Mrs Dawson-Page. I... want to see him about a financial settlement. I'm separating from my husband."

  And is your husband a tall blond man who moves with the grace of a jungle cat? But the question stayed unasked and unanswered.

  A further thought jumped into Abbey's head as she wrote in the diary.

  "Is Mrs Dawson-Page going off with a tall blond man who moves with the grace of a jungle cat?"

  Still looking puzzled, Mrs Dawson-Page left the reception area. Jane turned to Abbey.

  "Odd woman. Seemed as though something hit her like a thunderbolt when you came down the stairs, Abbey."

  "She seems to think she's seen me before, and I haven't."

  Oh, but I have.

  "Coffee won't be long. Let me get this copying done for Mr Brooks."

  "Fine. By the way, I'm going to lunch with Kenneth Thompson at one-thirty."

  "Lucky you!"

  Lucky me, thought Abbey, going back to her office.

  Lucky me, with no man around, just some admirers that are pests at the best of times and sex maniacs at the worst, but -let's face it - useless sex maniacs. If they were any good I'd not have to ...

  Lunch, tinkle of silver cutlery scraping plates, muted sound of plates scraping fine white linen, rustle of unrolling napkins, gentle trickling of fine wine being poured into glasses that rang at the touch of a nail, tempting aroma of finely cooked food - not like the spit-roasted and boiled-to-death food on the table at the Danverson's midsummer ball! What would happen if I ate anything when I was there? Or drank water, or took anything other than come?

  "You're shifting around on that seat as if you've been spanked!" Kenneth Thompson looked through fine-rimmed glasses and smiled, half puzzled, half knowing. Abbey blushed.

  "Sorry, just thinking."

  "Tell me, you've been very quiet this time, not your usual bubbly self."

  "This is going to sound silly - " She broke off, cutting pale pink roast beef which slid apart under her knife.

  "It's you, me and the waiter, and he isn't listening."

  The other diners were busy with their meals. Alongside them the huge plate-glass window showed the busy road, flushed with cars of all shades, noisy with trucks bearing huge painted slogans that shouted commerce to the world. The soundless waiters moved as if on castors, distributing wine, food and calorie-uncontrolled desserts.

  "I started a book last night, just some thoughts, and it's rather taken over."

  As good a story as any, and it's half-true. I may well write it all down one day!

  "A book. Sounds interesting. Tell me," and the face went into the "I'm interested" pose that she knew so well. Insurance brokers looked the same no matter what you were talking about, they just needed to give the impression of listening.

  "I have this idea - for a heroine who finds a mirror in an old shop, not an antique shop, you understand, one of those house clearance places. There's this mirror on the wall, ornate gilt frame, very expensive and old-looking, but the thing is ... it isn't showing what it's facing. There's no reflection."

  "A supernatural book."

  "More sci-fi, I think. You see, when my heroine looks into the mirror, she flies back to some point in the past. She controls how and where she goes by wearing the appropriate costume. For example, if she's wearing an Edwardian outfit that's where she goes."

  "And has adventures. Sounds good." The "I'm interested" look became real for the first time. "How would she get hold of the costumes?"

  "She does a bit of part-time acting with the local amateur dramatics society."

  "Yes of course. As you do."

  Yes, I do, and I'll be there tonight at the King's Theatre, raiding the costume department. I want another adventure, the more I have the more I want!

  She frowned suddenly. Shifting around as if I've been spanked. Does he know what it would be like, to see a woman sitting before him who had been spanked?

  She cleared the frown before it could take hold.

  There was time enough to consider that thought, later.

  "How much have you done of this book?" The wine was going down fast. He'd had a bit too much and a flush had suffused his face, heading for the pale green Rael Brook collar that sat above his silk tie.

  "I sketched out some plot lines last night and wrote the opening pages."

  "Got a title, has it?"

  Come on, Abbey - think!

  "Time of her Life."

  "And are you going to write it? I mean, this isn't just an idea that'll go nowhere, is it?"

  "I'm going to write it."

  "Good." The smile was real, the interest genuine. That much she did understand.
"What are you doing at the theatre at the moment?"

  "A drama set in the time of Charles I, court and officials and mistresses, all sorts of intrigue."

  "That's your starting point for the book, then, the time of Charles I, whenever that was."

  "1625," she said. He raised his eyebrows.

  "You've done your research." He beckoned to the waiter. "Let me know how it goes, I'm interested, really I am."