There were not many things you could count on in this wicked world, but the postal system was one. Her letter would arrive in New York City in two days. She loved the idea of news traveling so fast. If only it could be good news.
Moss never thought of the telephone.
There were occasions when a person might use that apparatus, but such an occasion had never arisen in Moss’s situation.
Dear Mr. Walker,
Following your instructions to keep you informed of all that occurs, so that you may be of immediate assistance in any regard, please be advised that inasmuch as she has decided to change her will, Miss Harriett wishes an attorney to come. I hope you will kindly arrange such a visit. I thank you for assisting Miss Harriett in this endeavor. She is poorly. The attorney needs to take the next train.
Your servant,
Kathleen O’Malley Moss
In the insane asylum, Katie was crocheting. It was one of the few activities she was allowed, and she loved it. From that slim silver hook and a ball of plain string would flow circular lace, with arches and whorls, pineapples and crescents. Strat watched it pour off her hook. In the background, the Melancholia wept and begged and the Conspiracy muttered and gnashed.
Strat thought of Anna Sophia. Harriett had loaned her a ballgown that wondrous night. He remembered Miss Lockwood in lace, her hair piled in dark glory. He remembered even the gloves she had worn, the thinnest, most fragile lace, the patterns pressed up against his own palm. There had been nothing fragile about Miss Lockwood except the borrowed clothing. He wrenched his mind from Anna Sophia. “What happens to the lace after you’re done, Katie?” he asked.
She shrugged and went on crocheting.
“I mean, really,” he protested.
“The laces are taken from me. I expect they are sold.” Katie’s hair was thin and crinkly. Anna Sophia’s hair had made Strat crazy. There was not the slightest curl to Annie’s hair; it might have been ironed. Touching it was like threading silk ribbons through his fingers.
I’m thinking of her as if she is here, thought Strat. I’m thinking Annie, instead of Miss Lockwood, as if we are close again, and can touch again, and maybe even laugh again.
He focused on Katie’s crochet hook. What uses might that slender tool have? Could he pick a lock with it?
Katie laughed. “You’re going to get out of here eventually, Strat. I can feel it. Someday you’ll see the hole in their strategy and you’ll slip out and be gone.” There was a tear on her cheek, which was unusual. Katie was so strong.
Strat felt strangely at peace with himself because he no longer noticed her misshapen body, just sweet Katie herself.
Then as usual, he became selfish: Okay, God, I’m a better person, so ease up and let me out of here.
God, as was usually the case, did not seem to be listening that carefully. So Strat talked in his heart to Annie, who always listened.
He remembered dancing with Annie. She had been so light on her feet. She and Strat had spun across the dance floor like autumn leaves falling from trees: at one with the melody and the wind. He remembered their few kisses. It was not decent to be forward with a lady, and all his gentlemanly self-control had been required, lest he go beyond the bounds of good behavior. He remembered best the kiss he had laid on her soft cheek, with which he had sealed his intent toward her.
I love you, she had said when she left him. Be good to Harriett, she had said when she left him.
The thought of Miss Lockwood and every other loss he had endured brought a single tear to Strat’s face too, and then, to his fury, Dr. Wilmott was standing there, taking notes.
Patient weeps, the doctor entered in Strat’s casebook. “You know, Mr. Stratton, normal young men do not cry. It is a serious indication of your delusions.”
“If we were to talk about my delusions in your office, sir, we could solve them better than if we talk here, while I am strapped down.”
For once Dr. Wilmott did not just smile and exit. From the safety of the door, he said sharply, “You are an insult to your family and to God. You attacked an innocent man trying to assist you. You will remain restrained. Be thankful that you are fed and housed.”
Walker Walkley thrashed around, half caught in the sheets and blankets. He scrubbed the stubble on his chin with his palm. He wet his lips. The name Miss Lockwood upset him badly. His eyes flew around his bedroom. All too well he remembered the ghastly sight of that girl materializing out of nothing.
“Don’t just stand there! Tell me about her!” shouted Walk.
His servant said, “The cab took her to the docks. I asked the maid who was sweeping off the steps when Miss Devonny’s friend was leaving. She said Miss Lockwood was going to Albany.”
Albany.
“She will have taken the overnight boat,” said Walker Walkley. He felt excitement beginning to rise. What a chase it would be! And what a fine ending. His ending. The way he dictated things! That’s how it would end. “The night boat is slow. People take it because it is spacious and elegant. It is a treat as well as a journey. I must reach Albany before the boat. Before that evil girl. So I will catch a train.”
His manservant looked puzzled. No doubt the fellow did not know where Albany was. He certainly did not know what happened at Albany. Albany was where you changed transportation. From Albany you went north … to the Adirondacks … to Strat.
Mr. Walkley pointed to his wallet on the dresser. His man fetched it.
The wallet was empty.
So was the sock in the second drawer, and so was the silk-bound keepsake book where Walk kept cash between pages instead of theater tickets or autographs.
Miss Lockwood took my money, he thought. How could she have known it was here? How could she …
But Walk was one of the few who had seen Anna Sophia Lockwood come through Time. He had watched a ghost emerge in the road, and seen flesh come to her, seen her hair grow and her smile appear. He had seen the wicked clothing she had worn out of her own time—short little white pants and half a shirt. He knew that she could do anything she chose. Now it appeared that she could scent out the locations of paper and silver money.
Walk sucked in his breath. “Call Miss Devonny’s maid to me. Schmidt. Bring her here.”
“What was her name?” said Katie.
“Whose name?”
“The girl for whom you are here,” said Katie. “I know all about Harriett and Devonny and Florinda, but I know nothing of her.”
Strat shook his head. “I cannot talk about her. Not even to you.” Then he was ashamed. Katie deserved the story. And what else did he have to give Katie? It was his turn. “Katie, if I tell you about her, you will also believe that I am crazy and deserve to be here.”
“Start with her name,” said Katie.
But it had not started with a name. First he had seen her: a ghost becoming flesh. Then he had walked a lonely beach with her, and laughed in the sun, and built a sand castle. “Anna Sophia Lockwood,” said Strat, as if repeating sacred words. “She wanted me to call her Annie.”
“Oooh,” said Katie happily. “Let me guess. She was Roman Catholic and you agreed to convert and your father has you here instead of shooting you.”
“No.”
“You had a storehouse of gold, and you gave it to Anna Sophia’s poodle.”
Strat laughed. “No.”
“I give up. I can’t think of anything else involving a girl that would make your father put you here.”
“She said she was from another century.” Strat whispered in case Ralph was in earshot. “She believed she came through a hundred years of Time. She said they had orange juice every day, and didn’t use horses, and could fly in machinery like birds, and not only used telephones but their telephones printed books for them.”
Katie really laughed. “And they locked you up?”
He loved Katie then. He loved her for her good cheer and her good company. “Katie, I never told you that I’m sorry.”
“Sorry for
what?”
“For not getting between you and Ralph when you talked back. For letting Douglass be the one to save you, so they beat him too. For taking advantage of it so I could go outside. For running away to help myself instead of staying to help you.”
Katie’s smile was no longer hideous to his eyes, but warm and affectionate. “Douglass is full of love,” she said quietly.
And what am I full of? wondered Strat.
For she had not accepted his apology.
Steam was up!
Vapor rose thicker than clouds—more like blankets. Great gray swirls of cottony heat. Bells rang and people shouted and pipes clanked and water churned. At last, the steamboat pulled away from the dock and headed up the Hudson River. You would have thought they were departing for Paris, there was so much fanfare.
The Hudson River did not impress Annie. It was dirty-looking and it had dirty-looking ice on it too. The ice sort of hung around, as if there had been a party and it was left over. The steamboat paid no attention to it, but churned through the slush with an ugly whiff-fling sound, as if mashing innocent things in the water.
The day was grim and dark.
The steamboat was not romantic, but thick and ponderous and noisy. To her safety-conscious, next-century eyes, it looked ready to blow up. It smelled like mothballs and rotted flowers and sweat. People were jammed everywhere. The people terrified her. No woman wore makeup, and they uniformly seemed sallow and desperate.
Even the snowy banks of the Hudson River were pocked and gray. It was not a pretty snow. It hid no sins. It marked them out instead.
She was the object of considerable scrutiny from the men on board. The women were full of contempt for her too: she traveled alone. Of what worth was a woman without a man? Did no one wish to marry her? Did no father or brother care what happened to her? Could she not even find a clergyman or a cousin to escort her?
Her clothing was beautiful, and fashionable, and not the wear of a fallen woman. But alone? It was unthinkable.
The wind and the people were so cold.
The half-enclosed deck was like a vault where they kept bodies until spring so they could bury them in the hard, hard ground.
“Miss!” said a sparkly bright uniform: red and gold, like a child’s toy soldier in the midst of this gray nightmare. “You’re on the wrong deck, miss. Come with me.”
And the right deck, where the first-class cabins were, was as charming as an immense parlor. Individual scarlet upholstered chairs with matching ottomans were comfortably set around gleaming walnut tables, mostly occupied by stout men smoking cigars and sipping port. Port, said the attendant, was not suitable for ladies. What would she have? Coke, said Annie.
And when she tasted a familiar drink, how much less scary the world was, and how much less frightening her task.
Time changes go better with Coke, she told herself, and she grinned behind her heavy veil and her hat plumes.
“Inform Miss Devonny,” said Walker Walkley, “that she will have breakfast with me. Now.”
Schmidt was solid and thick. Her heavy black dress and its heavier black apron turned her into furniture. Nothing to notice. Simply a servant. No employer ever thought of a servant as having a personality or a soul.
“Miss Devonny is indisposed,” said Schmidt. She wondered when Mr. Walkley would discover that he was missing a great deal of cash. She wondered who would be blamed.
“Then fix trays. I shall have my coffee in her room with her.”
Schmidt had not considered this reply. But she had a better one. “Female problems, Mr. Walkley,” said Schmidt.
Walker Walkley nearly threw up. He could not believe Schmidt had said such a thing in his presence! Men should never have to consider the distasteful biology of women. He rallied. “Did Miss Devonny have an overnight visitor, Schmidt?”
“I cannot imagine what you are implying, sir,” said Schmidt. “I am shocked. Miss Devonny’s morals are above reproach.”
“A Miss Lockwood,” said Walker Walkley.
“I have heard that old Lockwood story,” said Schmidt, “from the staff in the country. Before they were dismissed.” She allowed herself a little smile at Mr. Walkley’s expense. “The time traveler? The one who supposedly came out of thin air at the seaside? I cannot credit, sir, that you, too, believe in time travel.”
Walker Walkley snorted. “She was rea—” He broke off, suddenly aware of the danger.
“Real, sir?” Schmidt finished the word for him. “You thought Miss Lockwood was real, sir? Did not young Mr. Stratton find himself in a lunatic asylum when he said that? Was this not your very own choice, sir, to lock up a man who believed in time travelers?”
The woman spoke excellent English. Hardly an accent. Really, there was no time in which immigrants were not infuriating. Either they spoke no English or too much. He said stiffly, “Will Miss Devonny be able to take the California train this afternoon as planned?”
“I shall inquire, sir.”
“Get out,” said Walker Walkley.
“David,” said Peggy Bartten, “let’s set a date for the wedding.”
The father of Tod and Annie Lockwood nearly crushed his popcorn box. “Peggy, we’re just seeing a movie. We’re not getting married.”
“I want to be married,” said Peggy Bartten.
“I’ve been married,” he explained. “It’s not what I want anymore.”
“David, either we get married or it’s over.”
“Nonsense,” said Mr. Lockwood, patting her knee. “Shh. The movie is starting.” He munched popcorn. He loved the fake butter they poured over it. He didn’t care whether it was healthy.
“David,” she whispered, right during the first shootout on the screen, “I’m serious.”
He patted her again. He was many things, and serious was not one of them. Women always dragged up this subject, and you had to make it clear where you stood.
“Oh, Schmidt, you are brilliant!” said Devonny. “Female problems! I shall lean on your arm. Swathe me in extra layers. Since men never have the slightest idea what a female problem is, Walk won’t be able to argue.”
Schmidt hoped this would mean another tip. Devonny’s tip at dawn had been a blessing. Schmidt earned so little, and had so many people to support. Paying for heat was difficult, and this winter was severe. Her mother was always cold. Schmidt’s one goal was to keep her mother warm.
“Schmidt,” said Devonny, “you will come to California with me. I need somebody to manage things. You are a wonderful manager.” Devonny smiled happily at this decision.
“But miss!” said Schmidt, horrified. “You already have a maid attending you. And my family depends on me. I cannot—”
“Schmidt!” Devonny frowned. “I’ve made my decision. Now pack your belongings swiftly because Mr. Walkley will be calling for the carriage in a few hours.” Devonny swept into her private sitting room, her silvery traveling gown whispering as it followed her around on the carpets.
Schmidt stood stunned. She had a brother who had never recovered from the war in which he’d fought, a sister who was tubercular, another sister who had been let go from her position, and a mother so arthritic and bent she could not get out of a chair by herself. Schmidt was the only one who could shop and run and go for them. The only one actually earning anything! How …
But Miss Devonny did not care how. It was not her problem. Therefore it was not a problem.
California, thought Schmidt.
So far away. She would be so completely, totally gone. And yet if she did not obey, who would earn the money to keep her family?
California, she thought, dazed. She rushed up the servants’ stair to her chilly cubicle and packed what she had: uniforms and heavy shoes and a coat not thick enough. But California is warm, she thought. The sun always shines.
Why, she was going to have an adventure—a great train—a vast journey. California!
She could not telephone her family to let them know. They had no telephon
e and did not know anybody who did. She would have to post a letter. Tomorrow, when she was in some other state, they would discover that they did not have her anymore.
I can’t do that, thought Schmidt, her brief hot dream of California vanishing. If only I had money. If only …
But there was money. Schmidt knew of one more place where hard cold cash was kept. Cash Miss Devonny had not taken for Miss Lockwood. Cash that perhaps even Miss Devonny did not know about.
If I took it … thought Schmidt.
And money glowed as warm and sunny as California in her mind.
“Why, Schmidt,” said Walker Walkley very softly.
She snapped toward the far wall. She didn’t have a heart attack, but her knees folded. Her sight became blurry and her hands, full of somebody else’s money, turned both sweaty and icy.
Walker Walkley smiled. “Schmidt, do you need money?” The man always smiled. There was something evil about the constancy of that smile. Nobody normal could have a smile endlessly tacked to the sides of his mouth.
Schmidt tried to stuff the money back. Wiped her hands on her skirt, as if she had not been stealing, he could not prove it, could not jail her, ruin her, destroy her and her family.
“No, no, no,” said Walker Walkley. His smile never changed. “Take the money, Schmidt. I’m so glad to be able to assist you. Tell me, Schmidt. Do you have family in New York? Do you have people who will be cold, who might even die, if they don’t have a warm place to live this winter? It’s snowing out again, you know.”
Schmidt could not speak.
“You keep the money,” whispered Walker Walkley.
The whisper was more terrifying than speech. Schmidt was trembling now, her solid frame quivering like gelatin.
“Don’t be afraid,” said Walker Walkley. “Just tell me about Miss Lockwood. All the plans Miss Devonny made. Everything, Schmidt.”
“Yes, sir,” said Schmidt.
“There will be only nine courses for dinner, miss,” the porter said apologetically. “I will come for you when your table is seated.”
The Time Travelers: Volume One Page 22
