The Time Travelers, Volume 2 (17 page)

“Do we have enough money to buy everybody an ice cream, Mrs. Lockwood?” asked Devonny. “Let’s go to the store and get ice cream treats for the whole team.”

Mrs. Lockwood thought that was an okay idea. Tod thought it was brilliant, and he smiled at Devonny, a smile that made her think twice about the twentieth century.

Devonny managed several detours to lengthen the errand. She needed to see how the high school game
was coming along; she must dart into the pharmacy for lip balm and stop at home to get warmer gloves.

When they got back to the field, Tod and the Laura’s Fabric Shop team were huddled around the bench, creating a strategy nobody could do and nobody would remember.

What a father he will be to his daughters, thought Devonny. What a husband he will be to his wife.

She was overwhelmed with wanting to be a good wife and a good mother, and to do these things with a good man.

At home, thought Devonny, men “do.” Girls “are.” But I’m watching a dozen little girls who not only expect to “do,” but are being trained to “do” and love it. They will be like Tod’s mother; they will run their team and make their goals.

What do I want?

Do I want to stay here and “do”?

Or do I want to go home and “be”?

She laughed painfully. She had no choice; Time had made it for her. These little girls on Tod’s team: for them, the whole world was a choice. It was frightening to Devonny how much possibility lay ahead of these girls.

Yet they led such hard lives, these people!

They did not commence the day by drawing a serene hot bath, but leaped into a vertical box with a
waterfall of water, cleansing in seconds. Then they leaped out and dressed themselves, and was there a hot meal awaiting to break the long fast of night? No. In the kitchen (kitchen! a lady had no place in a kitchen) you made your own (cold) breakfast.

And in class! The amount you were supposed to know!

It was undignified. There was no leisure. There was no elegance.

In Tod’s school, the girls were tough. They whipped each other in sports, they aced exams, they chaired committees, they won science scholarships, they got into superior colleges, they even got into West Point!

They did not cling. They did not demurely await a man’s pleasure. They were not demure.

After school, either they worked at a fast-food place or went there and had the fast food served by friends. Devonny would truly rather be dead than bring other people food or clean up after them.

Then the whole family had to work together to come up with dinner. Devonny herself was made to peel a potato.

Now they wolfed this food down and then sat in front of a television to watch other people talk and sing and dance while they did homework, and then they went to bed with no assistance. No one had
freshened the room, nor fluffed the pillows, nor prepared a hot-water bottle, nor filled the bedside carafe with cold water.

The day is going to come when Mrs. Lockwood will insist she has to call my supposed parents in England and tell them how much she loves me and what a fine guest I am, thought Devonny, and what will we do then, when we have to admit there is no family?

Family.

The cold burn of anxiety hit her again.

Oh, Mama, what are you suffering? You have made your terrible bed and must lie in it, and I took one great terrible step across Time and must accept it also.

“What’s the matter, sweetie?” said Mrs. Lockwood, all concern, all hug.

Devonny found herself close to tears. “I feel very alone.”

“It’s difficult to cross an ocean to another country, I’m sure,” agreed Mrs. Lockwood.

If she knew how great the ocean was! “You are so good at doing things by yourself,” said Devonny.

“Everybody here is so good at striding forward alone.”

“Alone?” said Mrs. Lockwood. “I’m not alone. Alone is hard and awful. Nobody wants to be alone. I have made a great sacrifice and many compromises so that I will not be alone, Devonny.”

Devonny did not believe this. “Tod says I’m a weak-minded Victorian who can’t stand on her own feet.”

“Where does he get this Victorian stuff, anyway? He keeps throwing that word around.”

“I cannot imagine,” said Devonny, and she kept her composure by distributing ice cream, while she imagined Victorian stuff: her world, her life, her friends, her family; the fiber of her soul.

There were three towers in the immense brown-shingled summer mansion by the shore. One was splendid, with a telescope and writing table for jotting observations of weather and natural history. It was not frequently used; not since a guest had been shot here last year.

One tower was part of the master bedroom, and Hiram’s fourth wife frequently fled to the sanctuary of that high place. Hiram could not follow, because his bulk was too great for the tiny winding stair.

But the third tower was simply to match and look graceful. It was inconvenient and not used for anything. It was reached by stooping through a low attic.

The carpenters had nailed wood over the windows.

A cot was placed against one cold wall, where the chilly winter wind sifted through the cracks. A chamber pot, a Bible and two blankets had been placed by the cot.

The door had been flimsy, but now was strong, and bolted from the outside.

“You will be fed,” said Hiram, “you who threatened me. But you will not have a life.”

He slammed the door hard, slid the bolt so that it shrieked, smacked a servant who did not get out of his way and smiled to himself. Aurelia was out of his life—and out of her own—as if she had never been.

Downstairs, servants were covering the furniture with white sheets. Silver was packed to be taken back to New York for the winter, while crystal and china were shelved in the butler’s pantry to await the spring. Rugs were rolled up and carried outdoors to be hung on lines and beaten clean. Horses were taken from the stable to board in town until Hiram needed them again next year.

Hiram strode out of doors to consider his view instead of his problems. As usual, the view entertained him not at all, and he was back to his problems.

It had felt good to see those hammers swing and force those nails forever into the window frames; it had felt good to see the fear and resignation of that old shriveled woman who had tried to damage him; but it did not feel good to stand here and know it accomplished nothing.

Nobody had accomplished anything.

His silly wife, Florinda, occupied herself writing letters to everybody they had ever known, especially
in California, hoping for a clue to Devonny’s whereabouts.

Police interviewed, scoured, searched, came up empty.

Lord Winden, skittering around with his necklace and his horrifying monster of a mother, was not capable of finding anything.

Flossie, in her new slum with her ridiculous husband, bringing shame upon her family, claimed to have no knowledge.

The police were skeptical that there was a kidnapper. After all, they claimed, Mr. Stratton should be able to supply more detail if such a person had actually penetrated the church and seized his daughter right off his own arm.

The wind rose. A flag snapped as hard as a snare drum.

There was no heat in the tower. It would be a long winter for Aurelia. Possibly she would not survive.

What have my children done to me? thought Hiram Stratton, his golf course and his gardens and his new fountain giving him no pleasure. A worthless son. A worthless daughter. I shall end up like my colleagues, having to give my fortune to some foolish university or worthless museum!

He had lost his son and now …

The truth came to Hiram Stratton.

He began laughing.

His laughter rose with the wind, and he knew it would be heard in the tower, for its walls were thin.

The kidnapper, somehow, some way, had been Strat himself! The son who stormed off, pretending death, refusing his heritage, had taken his revenge by taking his sister. Strat had ripped his sister right out of the church.

Hiram was suddenly quite proud of the son he had discarded. The boy has guts, he thought.

He stopped worrying about Devonny. Soon she and her brother would be in touch with him, and they would want money, and he would bargain until he had what he wanted: their marriages and their offspring.

Once more his step was jaunty, and he left for the city, and gave no more thought to the tower and the coming of winter.

Aurelia Stratton accepted her fate. She deserved it. She had done a horrible thing to her daughter. She had had no conscience, just a selfish desire for her own comfort.

This was how a worthless relative was treated. The severely brain-damaged, the grotesquely deformed, the emotionally crippled, the evildoer who belonged in jail but whose jail sentence would bring shame upon the household. Society agreed that such people
belonged in the cellar or attic: lock them up, tell nobody they still existed, everybody would pretend they never had, and nobody would be forced to think of them again.

And now one of those people was Aurelia herself.

She heard the roar of laughter from the man who had fathered their two children.

She heard the carriage leave, heard the creak of wheels and the clatter of horses’ hooves.

And then there was silence.

Only a few servants occupied the Mansion in winter. She had not seen them when the door was shut upon her.

They would bring her cold food only: there would be no sugar on the oatmeal, no salt on the meat, no drink except water, no butter for the bread, no hot coffee, no comforting soup. She would see no person. Whatever was handed in she would take, and whatever she handed back, empty bowl or full chamber pot, would be carried away. But she would see no sky, hear no person speak, have nothing to think about but her own failures.

She had slipped a note to the coachman. She could not include a bribe. She wondered if the note would be given to Hiram. Or had it already been given to him, and that was why he howled with laughter?

“We most certainly will not!” shouted Hugh-David’s mother.

Hugh-David winced. Really, he had been upset with the rude bellowing of Americans, but his mother could bellow as loudly as any New Yorker.

“I believe I must,” he said, trying to hold his ground.

“The woman is immoral. Evil. Disgusting. I am deeply disappointed in your silliness! Throw that note away immediately and stop whimpering over it.”

Hugh-David did not think he had been whimpering. He had been considering. Considering a girl who once said that he had no spunk.

“Just what do you think you will do with the woman once you rescue her?” shouted his mother.

“I don’t know,” he admitted.

“Well, come up with something before you embark upon a ludicrous and unlawful excursion!”

Hugh-David yearned to nail his mother in a frigid attic. What pleasure there would be as he walked away. He reminded himself that he was not a barbarian, and must honor his mother.

This was a dreadful thought. The woman was bound to live for decades.

He said, “I am concerned that Aurelia Stratton might take her own life.”

“What difference would that make?” demanded his
mother. “Her life is as good as gone anyway. It will save everyone a deal of trouble.”

He took a deep breath. With his mother around, his lungs got as much exercise as if he had taken up rowing. “I do not think she did enough to deserve such a fate, Mother,” he said, “and I do not think Devonny would wish to see her suffer. Certainly Devonny would not wish to see her die by her own hand. Devonny has a good heart. She would wish her mother’s happiness and prosperity.”

“A good heart?” shouted the Duchess. “A wench who runs away from her own wedding?”

“I cannot find or save my bride, but at least I can save her mother,” said Hugh-David. “A gentleman does not abandon a lady.” This was his new credo, difficult to remember when his mother was there. Some people deserved abandonment.

“Pshaw!” shouted the Duchess. “She abandoned you!”

His mother meant Devonny. “I don’t think so, Mama. I think Hiram Stratton set this up. I understand nothing, but I will wait this out.”

“What might you mean by that stupid remark? Do you plan to wait a month? A year? A decade? Come to your senses. You’re like your father. Your blood is thin.”

He studied his mother as she ranted and raved
about Granny’s pebbles, which he had put at risk, and his duty, which he was failing, and America, which was annoying, and what should she wear to the party tonight in order to look better than anybody else.

Devonny’s blood could be no worse than his own.

He opened the sad little scrawl from Devonny’s mother and read it again.

“Let’s drive down to Stratton Point, Tod,” said Devonny. Gianni Annello has a music room named for him, and we have a town beach and park named for us, she thought. Did we become friends? Of course we didn’t. I’m not there.

She had been deeply anxious all day, and now anxiety ruled her body. She could not eat, she could not look at the television, she could not go for a run with Tod’s mother (a woman past her prime, a woman over forty, running up and down like a street boy!).