The Time Travelers, Volume 2 (18 page)

Devonny thought of her own mother, and a horrible sensation attacked her body. She felt the attic. The splinters on the wall pierced her hand. She trembled in the total dark. The lonely silence gnawed the edges of her sanity.

Tod was always willing to go for a drive, and he did have to obtain more designer water from the pump, so off to Stratton Point they went.

Devonny clung to the seat belt that had once frightened
her so. How eerie to drive on paved roads where there had been a dirt path, to pass parking lots where there had been meadow, and—most awful—gaze up at a hill on which there was nothing but grass. A hundred years ago, she had danced in a ballroom there.

Her life was cut to the ground, not a trace remaining except the old red pump where the spring never ran dry.

“I’m going to teach you how to drive while we’re here,” said Tod. “There’s nobody around except joggers and runners, and nobody needs them anyway; we’ll just mow ’em down. You get extra points.”

Devonny was used to this talk now. In Tod’s Time, nobody meant anything by their threats, whereas in her Time, when Father threatened a person with being chained up … it happened.

She said, “I like having a chauffeur. You drive and I’ll look out the window.”

So he drove, and she looked out the window.

At the top of that graceful hill, a hundred years ago or perhaps now, her mother was afraid, alone and cold.

Tod had the excellent heater of the big old station wagon blasting; he himself was wearing a short-sleeved T-shirt. Yet Devonny felt the cruel wind slip beneath the shingles, cut through the blankets and lay frost upon her skin.

“Tonight Mom is taking us shopping,” said Tod. “She says you have to have jeans that fit.”

They are refitting me so that I am part of their Time. I should thank Tod, and love him forever, but I want to go home.

“Pretty soon we’re going to have to explain why you don’t have any family sending you spending money. I haven’t thought of an explanation. Have you?”

Devonny was not thinking.

She was seeing.

There was a tower.

There were three towers.

There was a mansion.

Her long thick hair lay heavily on her shoulders. Her eyes burned with staring. She was afraid to point it out to Tod. Perhaps he had not noticed.

Had they driven through Time this Time, instead of falling?

Was Time now a simple matter of taking a road?

She was trying to listen, trying to hear her own century.

From somewhere, for some reason, some Time was calling.

The tower was supported by two crossing beams above Aurelia’s head. She dragged the cot to the middle
of the room and stood on it, measuring the distance.

Then she sat back down on the cot and methodically ripped the sheets in strips, weaving them for strength.

She was afraid she did not have sufficient courage. But she knew she did not have enough courage to face this life of confinement.

“O my son!” she cried out loud. “O my daughter! What courage did each of you need? And I was not there when you needed me. I contributed to your sorrow.”

She clung to the torn edge of the sheet and said to her Maker, “I have sinned. Please forgive me. Please let me come to You in spite of my sins and in spite of what I am about to do.”

“Stop the car,” whispered Devonny. “I have to get out.”

Tod said, “Dev, it’s freezing out. You didn’t wear a coat.”

She got out of the station wagon.

Tod leaned on the horn.

“Stop it!” she shouted at him. “Stop making any noise!”

He stared at her and got out of the car, too, closing his door carefully so there was no slam. She was looking
everywhere. She was touching air, she was stepping around things that did not exist. “Dev?” he said nervously.

“Let go of me,” she said to him.

“I’m not holding you.” She’s there, he thought. In her Time. She can see what I can’t, touch what I can’t, hear what I can’t.

He was deeply afraid, and he hated his own fear. “Dev,” he said, wanting to hold her safe from pain and fear, wanting her to stay, and be his.

She was strangely blurry.

“No,” he said, “you’ve come such a long way, Dev, and you came for a reason, and we haven’t found it yet! Dev, don’t go.”

“Let go, Tod,” she pleaded, although they were yards apart. “I need to go home. I was wrong and you were right. A lady cannot wait for a man to rescue her. A lady cannot be weak-minded. She cannot demand that somebody else do something! A lady must rescue herself.”

Tod’s lips were numb and his hands stiff. “Devonny,” he said, and he thought, I wanted to rescue her.

Devonny turned to him and she was clear again; she was herself and beautiful and gold and—he was surprised by this—strong.

“Whatever is wrong when I get there, Tod, whatever
I suffer, whoever hurts me, whatever my father does—none of that matters.”

He was the one who hurt. He hurt all over, as if she were beating him up.

“You told me I must stand alone,” she said.

I didn’t mean it, thought Tod, trying to approach her again, trying to take her hand. He thought of his mother, when divorce seemed imminent, shrieking at Dad that she was just fine alone! fine! go! see if I care!

But she cared. And she had not been fine alone.

Alone was hard.

He did not want Devonny to go alone into whatever Time was, and he did not want to be alone here.

He wondered where Strat was. Alone? And where would Devonny be? Alone?

And where am I?

“Let go of me, Tod,” she whispered. “You are keeping me prisoner.”

“No,” he said, shocked, “I never did that, I never meant that. I was only trying to help.”

So he let go. He had touched her only once, and yet he had to unwrap his daydreams and release his half hopes, and let go.

There was a gust of wind, as fierce as a hurricane, and he closed his eyes against it, and hunched his shoulders, hearing screams that were not his, pressed
against shudders which were the suffering of others, and when it ended and he could open his eyes, he was alone with the grass and the wind and the seagulls.

There was no Devonny.

For a long time Tod clung to the edge of the car, waiting. It grew dark. There was nothing left to wait for.

He drove home.

NINE
 

L
ord Winden had meant this to be clandestine. He had intended to hire a carriage, travel at dusk, browbeat the few remaining servants, and then, soft and strong in the dark, carry the first Mrs. Stratton to safety.

He had most certainly not intended that his mother would notify Hiram Stratton, and Mr. Stratton would come with his fourth wife, Florinda, a silly little creature whose assets were unknown, and that Mr. Stratton would bring not one but two attorneys, and his own mother, the Duchess, would come along with her maidservant and with Gordon and Miles, whom she had adopted as her escorts in New York.

“I forbid you to do this!” shouted Mr. Stratton. “You may not enter my home!”

Hugh-David entered. The police had been so breathtakingly courteous during the church episode that he was confident they would not dream of arresting
a man with a title. His title was minor, almost meaningless, and nobody in England cared, since everybody (especially his own brothers) came ahead of him, but here they did not know that.

He had always wanted some great expedition, some new world to conquer. He had thought possibly of exploring the Amazon or reaching the South Pole. Possibly joining one of the splashier commands in order to defeat mountain tribes who did not want to become Queen Victoria’s subjects.

Breaking down an attic door was not world-shaking. Gordon and Miles were smirking, preparing yet another story to tell London about pathetic old Hugh-David. Perhaps Devonny was correct and he was horse manure.

There was an incredible amount of commotion. Mr. Stratton was yelling. The attorneys were yelling. The Duchess was yelling. Servants were yelling. The fourth wife was yelling.

“I do not know why you are making all this racket,” said Hugh-David with as much dignity as he could muster. “I am simply going to see that my fiancée’s mother has proper housing. Please lower your voices and behave in a reasonable manner.”

Nobody took this suggestion.

They entered the huge Mansion. What had been beautiful and romantic by summer was grim and haunted by winter. The floors creaked and groaned.
The servants carried lanterns, which cast shadows, creating hollows and pits where none existed. The flat floor felt treacherous, as if it might tilt beneath his feet like the deck of the ship where Gianni Annello had been imprisoned.

“If you think I am going to take on the burden of some divorced creature, you may think again!” shrieked his mother.

His manservant had armed him with a hammer but Hugh-David had no idea how to use the weapon. Luckily, the same servant had whispered in his ear that all he really needed to do was slide the bolt on the attic door. Hugh-David reminded himself that it was not his mother on whom he would use the hammer.

“Stop this!” demanded his mother, planting her ample body in front of him. “We are returning to England before you make an even greater fool of yourself.”

“I will return to England when Devonny is found.”

“Why are you doing this when I have expressly forbidden it?” demanded his mother.

He found the great stair. He could see none of its colors in this dark, none of its riches and splendors. It was colder indoors than out. How could that be? Hiram Stratton’s cruelty to his ex-wife seemed especially horrible because it was so cold.

“I’m doing this,” said Lord Winden, “because it is right.”

Gordon burst out laughing. “If you could see yourself, Hugh,” he said. “You look utterly ridiculous, storming across America to rescue some shriveled-up old prune as if she were a beautiful golden-haired princess.”

They were at the bottom of the great stair. The cold swirled down from the height of the open shaft, so fierce and dreadful they looked up, half expecting icicles on the chandeliers.

There stood the princess.

Screams rose in their throats, choked back from fear of what they were screaming at.

It was a specter. A dark ghost. A thing of medieval horror and power.

It was Devonny.

Hugh only half recognized her, for she was garbed in some sort of trouser, like a barbarian in the hills. Her lovely hair was loose, and somehow dusty, and disarranged. She stood silently above them and he felt a tremor, as if they were her subjects, and had disobeyed.

“Where did you come from?” he whispered. “Are you all right? Have you been here all along?
Did your own father lock you in the tower with your mother?
What is going on, Devonny? Please forgive me! I did not think of looking in your own house.”

Behind Devonny stood her mother, a wraith more real.

Down they came. Step by step. Slow as a wedding march.

Hiram Stratton backed away. He mumbled, “No, that’s not true, I didn’t do that, it isn’t me, it didn’t happen.” He tripped and fell heavily.

Devonny asked Hugh-David, “You were on your way to save my mother?”

“Yes,” he said. He was numbed by her loveliness, shocked by the garb her father had forced her to wear. The audacity of the man! First imprisoning the son, then the former wife, finally the daughter! To what end? For what reason?

For a long while she did not speak. She paused three steps above him and examined the face of the man she had been destined to marry. He stared back. He was stronger than he had been. Standing up to his mother was an act he had never expected to achieve, and he had done it, and let Gordon and Miles laugh. He was stronger. Devonny, too, was stronger. Not weakened by her ordeal, she was calm and certain, standing in judgment of him.

“We have all suffered enough,” said Devonny. “Let us not accuse one another of crimes and cruelty.”

Hiram lurched to his feet. “But—”

“Let us forget the past.”

She is a great lady, thought Hugh-David. Her wedding destroyed, her place in Society battered, her reputation suffering, her father responsible for her terrible fate—and she wants us to forget this. “I am impressed, Devonny. I would be bringing charges against him. I would force him to suffer as he forced you. And you, after all you have suffered, you choose to forgive.”

She descended the final steps, and now, standing on the same level as the rest, she seemed almost ordinary. The ice goddess from the top of the stairs was just a thin girl trying hard not to weep.

He wanted desperately to protect her. Idiot, he thought. You have failed to protect her.

He held out his hand to his bride and she took it. Her skin was so cold. He gathered her in, pulling off his coat, wrapping her up. “Gordon,” he ordered, “put your coat around Mrs. Stratton. They are freezing.”

He could not know how relieved Devonny was when he jumped to the wrong conclusion and accidentally supplied an explanation for where she had been. They assumed Father was responsible. She would never correct them.

Armed with his hammer, standing in front of those who opposed him, Hugh-David did not look at all the way she remembered him. He looked handsome, and brave, and a little bit silly. She found herself smiling.