Out of Time

by Deborah Truscott

  “Actually, the tea set is perfectly … customary,” I told him.

  “I see,” he said, looking frankly skeptical. A moment later he asked, “Are you quite alone, ma’am?”

  I raised the teapot again, filling first his cup and then my own. “And if I say yes, will you cut my throat and pillage the house?”

  “It’s been a while since I’ve done any throat-cutting or pillaging, Miss…”

  “Mrs. My name is Kathleen Finlay.”

  “And is this your house, Mrs. Finlay?”

  “It belonged to my father’s family. When my uncle died, it became mine.”

  “And is there no Mr. Finlay, then, to arrive home unexpectedly while his wife serves tea to a stranger?”

  “Oh, there’s a Mister Finlay, all right. But he’s not about to burst in on us demanding satisfaction or anything like that.”

  “That relieves me, I must say.”

  “More cake, Colonel Upton?”

  But the Colonel was in no mood for pleasantries. “Forgive my bluntness, Mrs. Finlay, but your situation seems rather odd, to say the least.”

  My situation? I took a sip of tea and set my cup down. “Odd?” I asked sweetly. “How so?”

  “I should think it’s obvious. A lady alone, without servants. And no Mr. Finlay on the premises.”

  “Mr. Finlay’s in Virginia,” I told him.

  “Indeed?” he remarked, looking me dead in the eye. “Virginia, you say. And just where am I, Mrs. Finlay? Can you tell me that?”

  Chapter 6

  For a long minute I didn’t answer. I could hear the faint, ponderous ticking of the clock on the mantel in the dining room, its pendulum marking off the seconds one by one.

  “Don’t you know?” I asked finally.

  Two seconds ticked by, then three. Finally, Colonel Upton cleared his throat.

  “My question, Mrs. Finlay, was perhaps a bit imprecise. Obviously, I know where I am. I am sitting in the comfortable kitchen of a pleasant farmhouse along Skippack Pike, fifteen or perhaps eighteen miles from the city of Philadelphia in the colony of Pennsylvania. I know, madam, precisely where I am. At any moment I could walk out your door and ride down the road to Bethlehem Pike and thence to the Germantown Road…”

  His voice drifted off, as if he were reaching for an elusive thought.

  “Out the door and down the road,” I prompted. “Just like that?”

  He jerked his attention back to me. “Well, it would be easier, had I my horse.”

  I waited.

  “So the question would seem to be,” he continued, “not where I am but what I’ve encountered. For example, Mrs. Finlay, I could almost overlook your unusual gown, attribute it to some provincial lack of fashion. But the mechanical devices in your kitchen are puzzling, certainly. What else but the fantastical constructions of a mad inventor?” He paused, and lifted the napkin between thumb and forefinger. “And really, Mrs. Finlay. Napkins made of paper?”

  I smiled. “My grandmother never liked them either.”

  “Obviously a woman of sense and taste.”

  I wondered how long he had been like this and what sort of medication he was on. Surely, in another few minutes men in white coats would arrive to take him away.

  “Well?” he continued. “How did you arrange this? Smoke and mirrors, perhaps? It’s quite an elaborate trick. One moment I was sitting on a wall and in the next I’ve tumbled into a shed I had somehow overlooked. Very clever, Mrs. Finlay. I am impressed. Indeed, I congratulate you, ma’am.”

  “Colonel Upton, is there someone I can call for you? Someone who can help—”

  “But even more than the mechanics of this…this sleight of hand, shall we say,” the Colonel went on (ignoring me), “I’m curious as to the point. Am I the object of some bizarre experiment? And if so, why me?”

  I continued to flip back and forth in my assessment of him. He was crazy, plain and simple. No, he was an inspired actor attempting (for obscure reasons) to…to do what? Stage some sort of elaborate Candid Camera trick? Conduct a test of human gullibility? I stared across the table at him and reexamined my insanity theory. If he really did believe he was an eighteenth century army officer, then anything he couldn’t reconcile with his dusty, antique world he’d pass off as so much illusion and invention, games and tricks. He’d have to. To preserve the logic of his lunacy he would have to somehow discount what he couldn’t explain. And it was logical (under the circumstances) for him to think he could get up from my table, walk out the door and somewhere on the other side of the hedge find his horse and coat and whatever else he had left there.

  He was nuts, all right. But the thing was, apart from his delusions, he didn’t seem crazy. I remembered Lila in the grips of one of her spells and in comparison to her the Colonel appeared as rational as anyone I’ve ever met. More rational, as a matter of fact, than a lot of people I know who walk around loose. But Lila, of course, had gotten well again. Maybe the Colonel was beyond recovery. Maybe the truly lost were the most rational of all of us, thoroughly anchored in their mad reality.

  “Colonel Upton,” I began, trying to sound a lot more self-possessed than I felt. “Can you tell me exactly how you came to find yourself in my garden shed?”

  “I should think you’d know better than I.”

  “Please. Tell me anyway.”

  Irritably, the Colornel shifted, turning sideways in his chair with his elbow thrown over the top. “It is warm,” he said finally. “Indian summer, I believe you call it. A pleasant day after a string of chilly ones.” He looked at me, and for an instant he appeared disoriented. “There’s a bounty of acorns. They say we’ll have a hard winter.”

  A minute passed. “And you had been riding?” I prompted.

  “Since early morning,” the Colonel acknowledged, “and I was … I believe I was tired. So I dismounted, tethered my horse, stripped off my coat and waistcoat.” He turned his face toward me. “I’ve told you this before. The wall made a perfect bench. I folded my coat, laid it with my waistcoat on the wall and placed my pistol carefully on top, within easy reach of my right hand. Then I sat down in my shirtsleeves, half out of uniform, to tell the truth, and I…I think I was reading something. A map, perhaps.” He shook his head. “I must have dropped it when I lost my balance.”

  Not an act, I decided, marveling. He really does believe it. And just to prove it to myself, I asked: “Your coat, the one you took off …it was red, I suppose?”

  “You don’t mistake me for a rebel, surely?”

  A moment passed while I digested this. “How did you lose your balance?” I asked finally.

  The Colonel shot me a look. “The stone slab along the top was loose. Very clever of you. I shifted my weight and the slab wobbled. I lost my balance.” He shook his head. “I reached out. I tried to find purchase … but … I fell backward. And the next thing I knew I was getting to my feet in the gloom of that stuffy shed. Couldn’t see a damned thing at first, and I stumbled over that trunk you left there. Most inconvenient, Mrs. Finlay. You might have foreseen I’d trip over that.”

  There was a trunk back there? Probably lots of dust and cobwebs, too.

  “And then what?” I prodded.

  “Then I heard the door open, and I froze, hoping I wouldn’t be discovered. What would you have done in my place?”

  “I can’t imagine,” I said honestly.

  “How perfectly you timed it, Mrs. Finlay, entering the shed at that precise moment. What were you pretending to look for?”

  “A rake,” I told him. “And I wasn’t pretending.”

  “Of course not. And that astonished expression when you saw me. No pretense there either, I suppose.”

  “None, I can assure you.”

  “All this is becoming quite tedious, Mrs. Finlay. I’ve congratulated you on your clever little performance. Now I feel you owe me something of an explanation.”

  I dropped my gaze to the teacup in front of me, a modern teacup with a handle and a shall
ow saucer. Beside it was an empty dessert plate containing crumbs of a cake that had been wrapped in cellophane, a common twenty-first century substance the Colonel could not remember ever having seen before.

  He was nuts. He was crazy. And if I was smart I’d call 911 and summon the cops, let them take this madman off my hands. I visualized police cars and flashing lights, handcuffs and straightjackets. The Colonel (I was certain) would resist and draw his sword, the cops would pounce and…

  “Mrs. Finlay?” the Colonel prompted.

  I wanted to spare him that. I’d want to spare anyone that. Perhaps, I decided, we could resolve this quietly. Perhaps some mild shock therapy would startle him enough to give me someone’s name or number. Not that there weren’t drawbacks to an experiment like this, of course. What if he lost whatever grip he had, seized his sword and chopped me into pieces? I could almost see him tossing my mangled body parts into the freezer. Call 911, a little voice prompted me, but I didn’t do it. I didn’t even worry about being rendered into bits the size of canapes. Instead I drew a breath and said:

  “Perhaps it might helpful for you to know that today is Saturday, June seventeenth, two thousand and —”

  “No!” Colonel Upton cut me off sharply. “I don’t believe you.”

  Well, I could fix that. Did I have any newspapers handy? Any magazines? Something topical? I ran quickly through the possibilities. Newspapers and periodicals had been cleared out and trashed, but there were books all over the house and even one with a copyright date of 1986 would do the trick.

  Abruptly, I stood up from the table and gestured. “Come with me,” I said.

  The Colonel stared. I noted with some degree of satisfaction that he looked a little pale.

  “Come on,” I prompted.

  “More experiments? Or a little sleight of hand?”

  “Neither. I want to show you something. Some books in the living room.”

  “Living room?”

  “Parlor, then. Drawing room.”

  “Stage. Set. Interrogation room. Cell.”

  “Oh, for God’s sake.”

  “You may only be a pawn,” the Colonel continued darkly. “A lure. There may be others within this house for all I know, armed and at the ready, though I cannot guess their purpose any more than I can guess yours, Mrs. Finlay.”

  Paranoia, I thought, factoring this new symptom into my diagnosis. I fixed a reassuring smile on my face. “Just through that passage into the dining room,” I entreated. “The living room is right beyond it.”

  “Not a chance.”

  “Then wait here and let me bring the books to you,” I said sensibly, turning from the table.

  Like a sprung trap, the Colonel’s hand shot out and captured my wrist. “I think not, madam.”

  We were both on our feet now, staring warily at each other across the narrow table. I jerked my arm away to free it, but his grip held. “Let go of me,” I hissed.

  “So you can fetch reinforcements? So far, the odds are in my favor, madam. I do not care to change that.”

  “There is no one here but me.”

  The Colonel kept his eyes on my face, a smile ghosting coldly on his mouth.

  “I’m telling the truth,” I said evenly.”

  “Perhaps.”

  I waited a beat or two, then asked conversationally, “How long are we going to stand here like this?”

  “Actually, we’re going for a walk.” With his fingers still tight around my wrist, he maneuvered me away from the passage to the dining room until I faced in the direction of the kitchen door. “You go first,” he said, loosening his grip. “I’ll follow.”

  “There must be some military strategy in this,” I said. “Will you have a gun at my back?”

  “A lovely thought. Unfortunately, my pistol is with my coat.”

  “But you still have your sword.”

  We looked at each other.

  “You first,” he repeated.

  I shrugged and led the way across the kitchen, out the door and down the walk. “Where to?” I asked.

  “The wall.”

  “Garden shed.”

  “Wall. There was a wall there, Mrs. Finlay. And somewhere near it is my horse.”

  I began to turn in the direction of the garden shed, then thought of something. “Look,” I said quickly. “Will you trust me for a minute?”

  “Not as far as I can throw you,” he replied agreeably, and gestured toward his left. “The wall is that way, I believe?”

  I turned to face him. “Just give me a second. Let me show you something. It will only take a minute and then we’ll look for your horse.”

  I heard him draw a breath and knew he was preparing to refuse.

  “Please,” I said.

  We looked at each other. For the first time I saw that the Colonel’s eyes were blue, a dark, midnight blue. I held his gaze and saw his expression relax almost imperceptibly.

  “What is it you want me to see?” he asked.

  “A car.”

  He raised an eyebrow in question.

  “Carriage,” I tried again.

  “And where would this carriage be?”

  I pointed toward his right.

  “In the opposite direction of the wall,” he observed.

  “Garden shed.”

  Briefly, the Colonel’s gaze rose heavenward.

  “In the opposite direction,” he repeated, stating his objection.

  “Just over there. And just for a minute.”

  He considered, then jerked his head. “You first.”

  I turned and marched rapidly across a stretch of lawn toward the stable cum garage. Two old-fashioned garage doors faced the drive, the kind that tipped up when you lifted them. The Colonel stopped short about ten feet away. I kept on walking.

  “Look,” I said, bending to grasp the handle of the nearest door. Just as the door flipped up I heard the singing rasp of metal and knew the Colonel had drawn his sword. I spun around, saw him braced for a squad of opponents, saw the set expression of his face give way to bafflement as he gazed instead at Uncle Bennett’s ancient green Chrysler. I turned and flipped up the next door. Voila! My white Accord. I turned back to the Colonel and smiled in triumph.

  But he wasn’t impressed, merely wary. “Your idea of twenty-first-century coaches, I imagine.”

  What, I wondered, was I doing trying to reason with a crazy person? But in the next instant I was climbing into the unlocked Accord. “You don’t even need horses,” I went on, trying to reason with him anyway. “It’s self-propelled.” I poked my head out the door and looked back at the Colonel, who still stood in the driveway, sword in hand, regarding me as if I was a raving lunatic. “Really,” I insisted somewhat wildly, wishing I had the keys with me. Instead, I reached for the lever and popped the hood, then scrambled out of the seat. “I’ll show you,” I said, lifting the bonnet.

  For a moment he remained on the drive, silhouetted in the light. But the word “engine” proved irresistible. He lowered his sword and stepped gingerly into the garage, casting his eyes about in search of my thuggish confederates. Then he slipped cautiously down the length of the Accord as if at any moment it might kick like an unpredictable horse. Finally, like any red-blooded male, he bent to inspect the engine.

  Eventually, he straightened and sheathed his sword. “A self-propelled carriage,” he clarified.

  “Well, automobile, actually.”

  “Auto,” he said. “From the Greek, meaning self. And the Latin mobilis, moveable.” He smiled at me. “How imaginative.”

  “Are we still operating under the mad scientist theory?” I asked

  “That’s one theory. Unless the engine is a hoax, a clever stage prop. In which case we’re back to the eccentric magician theory. And that tedious question: why?”

  I sighed. Obviously we hadn’t made much progress.

  “You traffic in mere fantasy, madam,” the Colonel told me almost kindly. “You are ill and overwrought. Clever as your invent
ions seem, you must realize they convince no one but yourself. Consider, Mrs. Finlay,” he went on, echoing precisely the same thoughts I entertained about him: “You persist in wild imaginings. You insist that the year is two thousand and…and whatever. You dismiss anyone out of joint with your own delusions as … as … fevered, demented — or mad.” He waved his hand dismissively.

  I drew breath to respond, but the Colonel cut me off. “In point of fact,” he added (rather unnecessarily, I thought), “it astonishes me to think you are free to go about the countryside unfettered!”

  “I am free and unfettered,” I said stonily, “because I am sane.”

  “A perfect example of your perverse logic. You are sane, so therefore I am … I am…”

  “Yes?” I prompted smugly.

  “You prove my point!” The Colonel almost gasped. “You believe…you actually believe … that I’m mad!”

  “Well, the thought has occurred to me.”

  “My word, madam, you leave me speechless!”

  “Not so I have noticed.”

  “Hadn’t noticed? the Colonel spluttered. “Ha! Well, at least your repartee is unimpaired, even if your reason isn’t.”

  He was beginning to annoy me. “Colonel, I assure you my, ah, reason is quite sound,” I said tartly. “I am not insane. I am not delusional. In short, I am not, as you call it, mad.”

  “Well, one if us is,” he pointed out logically.

  “Perhaps there’s an alternative explanation,” I offered graciously, recollecting my role as the normal person here.

  The Colonel chuckled drily. “The alternative, madam, is to assume both you and I are sane. And if we suppose that, then we must suppose that I … that one of us has…”

  “Yes?”

  “Stumbled into some sort of…” He stood, one hand on hip, the fingertips of the other pressed to the bridge of his nose as if warding off a particularly nasty headache. “Some sort of warp in physical space,” he went on disjointedly. “Or … a rip in … a rip in … um…”

  Stunned, I sucked in my breath.