The Passage

by Irina Shapiro

  Finally, driven mad by curiosity Max asked his father, who patted him on the head, told him the lady was a special friend of his who had a particular interest in hunting lodges built during a certain period, and asked him not to mention it to his mother while stealthily pushing a five-pound note into his hand. That had been the end of that episode, but Max had never seen the pretty lady again, nor had he noticed any strain between his parents. Funny how adults avoided talking about things, he thought then, promising himself that he would always be straightforward and courageous when he grew up. He acknowledged with a sudden pang that he was neither and turned back to his mother, who was watching him with narrowed eyes.

  “Well?” Max demanded.

  “Your grandfather’s younger brother went missing one day. This was right around the turn of the century, and he was fifteen at the time. A search party was mounted, but after days of searching no one found any trace of the boy. The family was mad with grief, desperate for answers. The local police came to the conclusion that he must have drowned; his body carried away by the current. It was summertime, you see, and Henry went swimming nearly every day. One day, he simply never came back.” His mother set the cup down, warming up to her story.

  “So, what happened?” Max asked, suddenly breathless. Was his mother really about to tell him that the boy time-traveled?

  “Henry turned up several months later. He was dirty and dressed in rags, his arms and legs covered in dry blood. His mind had been affected by whatever happened to him. He kept prattling on about the Civil War and the horrors that he had witnessed, but no one took him very seriously. He’d always been interested in history, particularly that wretched war, so the family doctor just assumed that whatever Henry had experienced had driven him mad. Henry was given laudanum and put to bed. The doctor felt that he needed complete rest to recover from his ordeal, but Henry didn’t recover. He stuck with his story, finally forcing his parents to accept that their son was quite far gone.

  After several weeks, it was determined that Henry should be put in an asylum where he could have round-the-clock care and medical supervision.”

  “And?” Max asked, resenting his mother for drawing out the story just to torment him.

  “And, he eventually regained something of his former personality and was released into the care of his parents. He went on to marry and lead a successful and productive life, but after his death, a notebook was found among his things. It described his passage through a tunnel in the crypt of the church and his arrival in the seventeenth century. He spoke at length of the Civil War and mentioned several key battles. The details included in the narrative were not something a fifteen-year-old boy could have made up. He described the political and social situation of the time like someone who was there and lived it, rather than someone who simply read about it in a book. Since there was never any reasonable explanation for where Henry had been, it was a family joke that Henry had indeed traveled through time,” his mother concluded.

  “So, you believe it’s possible that he was telling the truth?” Max asked, suddenly struck by the fact that they were even discussing this with any degree of seriousness.

  “Max, have you known many people who traveled through time?” his mother asked sarcastically. “I haven’t. If such a thing were possible, I’m sure it wouldn’t be a family secret discussed behind closed doors for fear of having the taint of insanity associated with the Everlys. Perhaps Neve simply ran off with someone. There have been plenty of people who’ve faked their own disappearance and even death for the chance at a fresh start.”

  Max gave his mother a look of utter incredulity. “Why would she need to fake her own disappearance? She wasn’t married, in debt, or accused of a serious crime. She was just a lovely girl doing her job.”

  “Max, forget about her. Take the keys and pick up the car from the village after dark. Leave it in the old stable by the hunting lodge in the woods and cover it up. No one ever goes there, so no one would think to look. Leave her hold-all in the car. Make sure to wear gloves. If Neve Ashley turns up, we don’t have a problem. If she doesn’t, it has nothing to do with us. Our main priority is to avoid any trace of scandal. The Everly name doesn’t need to be dragged through the mud, especially if you have your sights set on a career in politics.”

  “Should I not alert the police that I found Neve’s things?” Max asked, perplexed by his mother’s attitude.

  “You always were thick, even as a boy,” his mother admonished. “Telling the police anything will immediately get your name into the papers. People won’t remember your role in the affair, but they will remember that you had something to do with the disappearance of a young woman who was your guest. You know how sordid the press can be; you’ll be accused of all manner of things, when you were nothing but kind to the girl. You’ll have to stand the trial of public opinion, which will accuse you and condemn you with or without evidence of your guilt. Let the police do their own dirty work and stay out of it,” Lady Everly concluded, ringing for a fresh pot of tea. As far as she was concerned, the conversation was over as well as their involvement with Neve.

  Max took a sip of his own lukewarm tea and turned over what his mother said in his mind.

  “Does the notebook still exist?” he asked casually as he leafed through an architectural magazine. He didn’t want to appear too eager for fear of alerting his mother to his interest, but she’d already moved on from the topic.

  “Yes, it’s in your father’s study. In the bottom drawer of the desk, I believe,” she replied, not even looking up at Max.

  Max took a few more sips and slipped out of the room, taking the stairs two at a time to the second floor and his father’s study.

  Chapter 20

  Max lowered the battered notebook and gazed at the purpling sky beyond the window. The first stars of the evening were beginning to appear in the sky, winking at him as if they knew some delicious secret. The table lamp shone brightly onto the faded ink of the narrative, the yellowed pages brittle and curled at the edges. Perhaps now he knew a secret as well. Having read Henry’s account, he couldn’t imagine that a fifteen-year-old boy could have made this up. Sure, he might have enjoyed writing a story to pass the time, but the details didn’t seem like the product of a teenager’s imagination. Henry described his confusion, fear, and an encounter with a group of soldiers who took him to Scotland to join Cromwell’s army. Henry’s account of the battle of Dunbar sent shivers down Max’s spine, the chilling details making his hands shake as he held the notebook. No turn-of-the-century boy could have described the carnage in such gory detail, nor invented such a story of survival and subsequent escape back to the twentieth century.

  Henry wrote this many years before the start of the Great War, so his knowledge of warfare would be limited to the schoolroom where no tutor would ever divulge such inappropriate details to a young boy, particularly the bits about the camp followers and the interludes with whores, which Henry described as well. He spoke of losing his virginity to a fourteen-year-old prostitute named Mabel, describing what it felt like and paying great attention to his surroundings, which were sordid to say the least; people coupling out in the open without any shame or need for privacy; men grunting like pigs as they did their business without any consideration for the women they used, paying them in coin, food, or even gin – whatever came to hand. Henry described soldiers waiting patiently as their comrades took turns with a particular whore, cheering each other on and offering encouragement and advice. Despite rampant prostitution in Victorian England, a boy like Henry would have been sheltered and woefully ignorant of the lurid details, even if he was aware of the basic facts.

  Unfortunately, what Henry did not describe was the location of the passage. He said that he found a secret door, but never mentioned where. The crypt was rather large and ran the entire length and breadth of the church building, and although Max had been down there several times, he’d never noticed anything out of the ordinary. He’d have to go expl
ore, but not before the business with Neve resolved itself. It would look too suspicious if he started hanging around the crypt days after people had seen Neve Ashley go down there for the last time.

  Thinking of Neve put Max onto a different tack. Henry seemed to emerge in 1649, but did that automatically mean that Neve would go to the same year? Supposing the passage did lead to the seventeenth century, could it be that Neve found herself there earlier or later than Henry? And what if she met Hugo? Max had always had a bit of a fascination with Hugo, partially because of the lack of information about his fate, but what if Neve did something to alter Hugo’s destiny? Max’s line descended from Hugo’s nephew, but what if Hugo didn’t die and fathered a child instead? Clarence would never inherit, and Max would not be Lord Everly or master of the estate. That was a very alarming thought, one that Max tried to push aside. He had absolutely no proof that Neve went back in time, nor that she went to a time when Hugo Everly would be in residence. And even if she had, would she be able to alter the past or was it set in stone; already a foregone conclusion since the twenty-first century was well under way?

  Max watched as the last bit of light was leached from the sky, the darkness settling over the parkland visible from the window. The stars were brighter now, the half-moon hanging low in the sky, almost skimming the tree line and leaning a bit to the side as if drunk. Getting drunk seemed like an awfully good idea at the moment, but Max had to stay alert. He’d wait until midnight to go and retrieve Neve’s car. The village would be deserted by then, most inhabitants already asleep in preparation for another day. He would be able to drive away unobserved, taking the car up the narrow track that led to the lodge and leaving it in the old stable under a tarp. There was sure to be a padlock somewhere in the mudroom which he could use to lock the stable.

  Max looked at his watch and went to pour himself a drink despite his resolve not to have one. If Neve went through the passage on Sunday morning, where was she? What had happened to her? Surely she would turn around and come right back when she found herself in the wrong time. She was a clever and resourceful girl, not a naïve teenage boy who grew up during the Victorian Era. What if she were hurt or accosted by someone? Max wondered as he took a gulp of his gin and tonic. A part of him wanted to rush to the rescue and play out a childhood fantasy of the knight in shining armor coming to save the day, but another part of him suddenly wished that Neve never came back. Her return would raise all kinds of questions, and what if she decided to tell the truth? This was not the time of confining people to asylums. Her story would cause an uproar, and bring all sorts of people to the Everly doorstep: scientists, archeologists, journalists, and all kinds of rabble who wanted to be a part of something sensational, or live out their fantasy of living in another time.

  Max poured another drink and stared at the clock. Was he running out of time?

  March 1685

  Chapter 21

  We finally reached Sir Benedict’s house by nightfall. It stood proudly amid a large park; the thick stone walls rising toward a purpling sky; the windows alight with the last rays of the setting sun just skimming the tree line and glinting off the diamond-paned mullions, and the chimneys just black stacks against the last of the light quickly fading into darkness. Like most houses built more for protection than beauty, Sir Benedict’s house was forbidding and impregnable, but I’d never been so happy to arrive at a destination. By this point, I didn’t care if I had to pretend to be the mistress of a baboon as long as I got to get off the horse. My back was on fire after nearly twelve hours in the saddle without any kind of back support, and my legs vibrated with tension and fatigue.

  I smelled of horse; my inner thighs were raw from chafing against the saddle, and I was so thirsty my tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth. I’d had nothing but ale all day, and some water would taste like ambrosia right about now, especially if it came in a clean glass. All I wanted to do was bathe, have something to eat that wasn’t bread and cheese, and lie down, but that was not to be. I had to join Hugo and sup with Sir Benedict, a meal which would probably last several hours and during which I had to play the part of the adoring mistress, not a resentful, tired woman who would have gladly strangled the arrogant bastard who abducted her and put her through this agony.

  I was shown to my room where I fell onto the bed, desperate for a few moments’ rest. A pretty young maid arrived shortly after, followed by a strapping youth who carried two sloshing buckets and grunted with effort. The maid pulled out a hip bath and the boy poured the water into the tub, tugged his forelock at me, and departed happily, no longer burdened.

  “Shall I come back to help you dress, Mistress?” the girl asked as she openly studied me. Had word already spread that Lord Everly arrived with a mistress in tow?

  “Yes, that would be most helpful,” I replied, eyeing the hip bath with suspicion. I’d seen one before, but had no idea what one was meant to do with it. Did I just sit in it and soak my nether regions or did I use the hot water to give myself a sponge bath? People of this time usually bathed in some kind of garment, so I was afraid that if I stripped down and sat in the tub, someone might walk in on me and suffer a seizure from the shock. I opted for the sponge bath and washed hastily, grateful for the warmth of the water after the gathering chill of the night.

  I had just slipped my chemise back on when the maid appeared, ready to assist me. I would have chosen one of the less extravagant gowns, but Hugo asked me to wear my best, so I selected the moss silk. He’d given me a brief set of instructions just before we arrived, but I was still worried, unsure of what was expected of me, especially when it came to our host.

  “What if Sir Benedict asks me questions?” I grilled Hugo, conscious of the fact that I would have a very difficult time conversing intelligently with anyone of this time period. I knew very little of the politics or the social tidbits that any woman would be privy to. I also had no idea what to say if Sir Benedict asked me anything about my opinions or about my stance on Monmouth’s attempted rebellion.

  “Don’t worry, he won’t ask a thing.” Hugo was looking at me in a way that suggested that he was holding something back.

  “How can you be so sure?” I couldn’t imagine that the man would just ignore me for most of the meal and ask me nothing, especially since my presence was unexpected and was bound to cause some speculation on the part of our host. Hugo sighed, clearly unhappy to have to explain the facts of life to me, but he had no choice since I was badgering him relentlessly.

  “Since Sir Benedict has never heard of you or your family, he will assume that I plucked you out of some theater or brothel; therefore, the only thing he’ll want to know about you is how you might look wearing nothing but a smile, and if you keep me satisfied in bed.”

  “You don’t mince words, do you?” I asked irritably, wondering if he was picturing me in nothing but a smile.

  “I was just giving you a truthful answer. It certainly wasn’t meant to offend. You are a beautiful woman, and any man will have lustful thoughts about you within moments of meeting you. I’m sure you already know that.” He didn’t add that I was too old to play coy, but I blushed all the same, suddenly feeling naked under his gaze. Did he have lustful thoughts? Is that what he was telling me? I couldn’t think about that at the moment. I was at his mercy, and I needed to believe that there were boundaries between us.

  I sat still as Polly brushed, braided and twisted my hair, finally wrestling it into an elaborate coif.

  “Will this do?” she asked shyly, twisting her hands in front of her.

  “Yes, thank you, it’s very nice,” I replied. “Where did you learn to do that?”

  “I used to be Lady Nolan’s maid before she passed. She was a beautiful lady who liked to look her best and wear all the latest fashions even when in the country.”

  “How old was Lady Nolan?” I asked, wondering about Polly’s mistress.

  “She had thirty-two years, madam, so not so very young.” What Polly meant was that Lad
y Nolan was quite old. A woman was at her prime at twenty, middle-aged by twenty-five, and practically geriatric by thirty. Did Hugo think me old? I suddenly wondered?

  “What did she die of?” Polly seemed taken aback by my unnatural curiosity, but she answered nonetheless as she set about dressing me.

  “She had a weak heart. It just gave out one day.” Polly shrugged as if that was the most natural thing in the world and went on with her work. I couldn’t help wondering what that meant in modern medical terms. Did she have a heart attack or maybe high blood pressure? I had no way of knowing, but I felt sad for the no-so-young, fashionable woman who died before her time.

  “Hold out your arms, madam,” Polly instructed as she fixed the sleeves to her satisfaction, and then tied the laces of the bodice and tucked them beneath the bustle of my skirt. I gaped at myself in the mirror. I was sure that somewhere in there was still the same Neve Ashley I’d always been, but the woman who gazed back at me was a stranger. Polly insisted on applying some make-up to make me look “just the thing” as she put it. I rejected the thick, white paste for fear that it was lead-based, but allowed Polly to coat my face with some rice powder and rub a little cerise powder into my cheeks. She would have gladly plucked out most of my eyebrows and probably a good deal of my hair as well to give me a larger forehead, but I stayed her hand and allowed her to just shape my eyebrows a little, leaving her clucking with disapproval.

  I handed Polly the jewel case, sitting regally in front of the mirror as she draped the necklace over my powdered bosom and closed the clasp. “You do look lovely, madam. Do you have any patches?”