The Time Travelers, Volume 2 (6 page)

Devonny saw that she was going to construct a false childhood to tell Lord Winden, because she did not want him to have any part of her. But he will have part of me, she thought. That is marriage.

Far away, on the narrow gravel road that was the only entrance to the Stratton estate, clattered a large open cart, pulled by two extremely heavy, slow horses. Men sat on the open cart, legs dangling. The syllables of their foreign tongue were faintly audible.

Flossie said, “The stonecutters are done, Devonny. The fountain is complete.”

If the stonework was done, Johnny would not return in that cart tomorrow. How would the lovers meet? Was it Devonny’s responsibility to ensure that Flossie and her beloved had time together?

Time.

Who, and what, was Time?

“The turf has arrived,” said Flossie, as if either she or Devonny cared about this, “and the gardeners are unrolling it. Your dear father expects to turn the water on shortly. We shall have a garden party this evening to celebrate the beauty of the spraying fountain.”

“And the joy of our upcoming nuptials,” said Lord Winden. He linked his arm in Devonny’s. “Miles, take my horse back with you. Miss Stratton and I will walk.”

The rest of the party rode away. She was alone with him. A strange man from a strange country. Her fingers tightened on his arm, to hold herself up, and he liked that, and patted her hand. Devonny wanted to sob. Unlike Tod, Lord Winden would be pleased, because female weakness was pleasing to a man in Devonny’s century.

It is the only century I have, she thought. If I do as that boy suggested and just say no, I will be a spinster. A thin beaten woman, alone with a needle and thread. Defective. People might study me briefly to see what’s wrong with me, but then they’ll laugh, and turn away, and occupy themselves with interesting people. “Why don’t you marry an English girl, Winnie?”

He smiled at her. A smile she would share with Lisette. “I fear,” said Hugh-David, “that English girls who are suitable are as penniless as I.”

“An English girl would understand how you live and what the rules are, Winnie.”

“I shall teach you the rules. Your father assures me that you comprehend your marriage vows. You will obey me.”

The meadow went steeply uphill. She caught her skirts in her right hand, to keep from tripping. “The Stratton family, by and large, does not care for obedience, Winnie. One does not accumulate millions of dollars by obeying.”

“The first thing in which you will obey is this, Miss Stratton. You will not address me as Winnie.”

“I think it’s a sweet nickname.”

“No, you don’t. You think it will provoke me, and you are correct. Do not use it again.”

She saw their lives together. A verbal battle, in which she must always surrender. She would address him as “sir,” then, as if he were a stranger at a ball. “How old are you, sir?”

“I am thirty,” he said, and to Devonny this was as terrifying as another century.

“I am afraid,” she admitted, and hated herself for it.

“You are very young. But you will love England. My mother is difficult, but if you leave all decisions to her, and if she continues to run the houses herself, you will have no problems. And because you are very beautiful, Society will accept you in spite of your being an American.”

Society, in London and New York, worshipped beauty. They painted, photographed, wrote about and loved a beautiful girl.

“It’s pagan, isn’t it?” said Devonny. “If we were
really Christian, we would not care about beauty. But we are not Christian. We worship the body. We adore a beautiful face. It, and not God, is first.”

He was shocked. “Of course we are Christian!”

“We go to church,” agreed Devonny.

They were the same height, and their eyes met. He had beautiful eyes: large and gray and calm, with long lashes and straight-across eyebrows.

She said, “I don’t want to wear a borrowed gown meant for somebody else. I might end up in a life meant for somebody else. I even think you want somebody else.”

“My dear, if I were not in great need of money, I should not be taking this step. Winden is not an easy house to maintain. I must put coal in fifty fireplaces, pension my old gamekeepers and nannies, pay cooks and scullery maids, gardeners and yardmen and stable hands. I must maintain carriages and horses.” He smiled again. His was a useful smile, much like a signature on the bottom of a contract. “Think of this as your gift to English civilization. You, and you alone, will save this piece of history, Winden Castle.”

“I am so sorry,” said Devonny, “that the many civil wars of England did not result in the destruction of Winden Castle.”

He burst out laughing.

His laugh was as charming as his accent, and she
nearly caved in, nearly let herself like him a little, but she reminded herself that in his description of expenses, Lord Winden was leaving out a great deal. He must have his own tailor, of course, and gambling money. He must have his mistress, and she must have jewels and pleasures. He must be able to go to Paris or even India when the mood took him. And would Devonny go along, or would he leave her with his difficult mother at this castle with its leaking roof and no plumbing?

“It will not be so unhappy as you picture it,” he said to her. “I will not be unfair.”

Flossie will elope for true love, thought Devonny, and I will wed a man who will not be unfair. “After we are wed,” she said tiredly, “when will we make our first visit back to America?”

“Back to America?” he said incredulously. “My dear, once is enough.”

The sun was setting. The newly laid turf was emerald green and the sky a painting in purple.

The entire party—her father and stepmother, Florinda; Flossie and her parents, Mr. and Mrs. Van Stead; Rose; and the three Englishmen, Lord Winden, Gordon and Miles—gathered around the new fountain.

Little boys carved of stone cavorted beneath spray
that came from the mouths of dolphins. Circles of sparkling water were tossed into the air, and a spout rose in the middle, casting delicate rainbows.

“And now,” said Lord Winden, “another thing of great beauty. It sparkles almost as much, Mr. Stratton, as your fountain.”

He opened an old leather box held like a platter on the palms of his manservant’s hands.

Resting on ancient crushed velvet was a vast necklace, a throat protector, with hundreds of diamonds.

Flossie gasped.

Rose shrieked.

The ladies crowded forward, making little cries of delight. Devonny’s stepmother removed the delicate cameo that Devonny was wearing, and carefully lifted Devonny’s hair from her neck. Devonny felt as if her neck were being prepared for a sword, not a jewel.

“Granny’s pebbles,” said Lord Winden, enjoying the commotion. He and Florinda fastened it around Devonny’s neck. Diamond ribbons hung from a diamond-encrusted band, utterly hideous and utterly magnificent.

It’s my collar, thought Devonny. I’m his dog, he’s my master.

“Oh, Devonny!” cried Rose, looking adoringly at Lord Winden. “In such a necklace, surely you will meet the Queen.”

“The necklace is very old,” said Lord Winden.
“Granny will tell you the history, but it’s been around forever. Everybody’s worn it.”

“I shall have to have a daughter, then,” said Devonny, “to wear it in her turn.”

It was rude to refer to future daughters. A man wanted sons.

“No,” said Lord Winden, denying the possibility of daughters. “You will pass Granny’s pebbles on to our son’s wife.”

“Oh, dear Lord Winden,” cried Florinda, good stepmother and excellent hostess, speeding away from Devonny’s mention of girl babies, “I am in love with you myself. Devonny, darling, I see you wearing the family necklace, supervising the family castle! You will be welcome at every party. You will have dinner with the Prince of Wales!”

The Prince of Wales, thought Devonny, is a fat old lecher who drinks too much. “The American press,” said Devonny, “does not think much of the current fad of marrying titles. There was an editorial in the
Tribune
that we American girls should seek noble hearts instead of noble names.”

Lord Winden smiled engagingly. “I do not have a heart, my dear.”

The others laughed at this funny little joke, but Devonny believed him.

He did not have a heart.

Tod was much taller than his little soccer team.

Six-year-old girls stared up at him, their little mouths open, their little clothes messed up, their little hairdos as windblown and confused as their expressions.

There had been no parent or adult willing to coach the six-year-old girls, and Tod’s mother had informed her son that this would be good for him. He, Tod, would be their coach, and their role model.

The little girls were completely alien; he might as well have been coaching kangaroos or harp seals.

They did not have the concept of this game at all. They watched the ball now and then but did not get involved with it.

“Hit it with your shoelaces,” said Tod patiently.

“Keep your eyes on the ball,” he said constantly.

His little team couldn’t do that. They had each other to watch, and Tod to watch, and the sky and the birds. They could not get a sense of the action. They were lost right there on their tiny playing field, inside their modified game.

He showed them how to hit the ball with his forehead, and his little girls quite reasonably fell down laughing at the sight of a big boy like Tod whacking a ball with his face.

But they loved him.

Tod had never been loved like that, the pure complete adoration of children for their teacher.

If he wanted them to bat balls off their ears, they would try. If he thought racing up and down a stretch of grass mattered, they would make it matter.

They were thrilled with the color of their team T-shirts (hot purple) but sadly disappointed with the name. “Laura’s Fabric Shop?” said Elizabeth, who could read better than the others. “We thought we’d be Tod’s Team!”

All his little girls had formal names: Elizabeth, Emily, Letitia, Judith, Constance. He thought they’d run harder if they had harder names, so he called them Liz, Em, Tish. “You’re athletes now,” he explained. “You’re fighters. You’re tough.”

They were awed at this description of themselves, and by the end of practice were far more grass-stained than usual, and Tod told them he was proud.

“Devonny!” he yelled. “Keep your eyes on the ball.”

Every little player ground to a halt. “We don’t have a Devonny on the team, Tod,” Tish told him gently.

Tod shivered, as if Devonny’s hair had drifted across his face. “Right,” he said. “I meant Liz.”

I’m normal, Tod told himself, although he had never heard of a normal teenage boy agreeing to coach six-year-old girls’ soccer. Time travel is abnormal. So it didn’t happen.

Tod, who had never thought of texture in his life, who did not know the difference between velvet and
denim, found himself remembering the texture of Devonny’s gown. He had no word for that soft glossy stuff. He remembered her tears. For years, Tod had enjoyed making his sister cry—in fact, it was kind of a hobby of his, a successful hobby—but he felt pretty crummy remembering how easily he had made a strange girl cry. He remembered the curls, the strands of hair he had not touched but wanted to. The shock on her face when he left.

He had screwed up big-time. He should have stayed with her and helped.

This was a nauseating thought, and he got rid of it. The last thing he wanted was some romantic nonsense in his life.

“Em!” he bellowed. “Run the other direction!”

Emily eagerly ran the other direction, without remembering to try to take the ball with her. The ball lay alone and forgotten at the wrong end of the field.

Tod engaged his mind, putting it equally on soccer and designer water, leaving no spare brain cell for Devonny Stratton.

After dinner, so the gentlemen could enjoy their cigars and have an intelligent conversation, the ladies left the dining room.

Florinda, as hostess, led with Mrs. Van Stead, while Flossie, Rose and Devonny followed.

“We must discuss gowns,” said Florinda as soon as they were all safely inside the parlor. “It’s going to be so difficult, getting ready so quickly.”

Rose, knowing she would be a bridesmaid, was wildly excited. “Ooooooh, this is so lovely! A grand, grand wedding and the attention of the world. And afterward, you shall live in England. People are so civilized there. Not like here.”

“All Hugh-David wants is my money,” said Devonny. Granny’s pebbles had been returned to their leather case, but her throat felt dented from their weight.

“Then it’s good you have lots of it,” said Rose. “This is so unfair. Mother and I were husband hunting in Saratoga and we didn’t encounter a single possibility. You didn’t hunt for a moment, and up walks the most eligible creature to visit America in years!”

“I’m too young to husband-hunt,” said Devonny.

“And I, too old,” said Rose. “I am twenty-two, and I am getting frightened.”

“There now,” said Florinda, patting her. “You’re a lovely lovely girl, and some fine young man is out there thinking of you even now.”