“Your mother came,” Annie told him. “She sold jewels to buy her ticket. Dr. Wilmott wouldn’t let her in. He said it would disturb your treatment. As for Devonny, your sister wrote you all the time. But she has been almost a prisoner of Walker Walkley, and Walk interfered with the mail. None of Devonny’s letters ever left the house.”
“Walk handled the mail? But where are Father and Florinda?”
“Florinda and your father went out to California several months ago. Your father has decided there is more money to be made on the West Coast than on the East.”
“How ridiculous,” said Strat. “There’s nothing out there but orange trees.”
“Trust me, Strat, he’s right on this one,” said Annie. “Anyway, your father pretty much left everything in Walker Walkley’s hands. And you know those are sick and greedy hands.”
“And Harriett?” he whispered. He knew how hard this question would be, for both Annie and Harriett had loved him: loved him at the same time, with the same hope.
How Annie wanted to skip the topic of Harriett. Strat’s fiancée. In his own Time, Strat was a gentleman. In her Time, Annie was not acquainted with many boys to whom manners mattered. But being a gentleman also involved honor. And Strat, a man of honor, would want to do the right thing by the ladies in his world. She, Annie, must also do the right thing by the people in this life.
Annie set out the facts harshly and fast. “Harriett has consumption. She is at a cure cottage at Clear Pond, recovering her strength. Devonny instructed me to take you to her if at all possible. Harriett doesn’t know you were locked in Evergreen. She was already at Clear Pond. In fact, I’m guessing that Walker Walkley coordinated things so neither of you would know the truth about the other. Your father and Walker Walkley felt that being told about your insanity would be another burden for her bad health. They said she could not bear the news that you had become insane.”
Strat sat, as far removed from Annie as Time, caught in the world he had had once and did not have now. “Anna Sophia, I have some very ugly people in my life.”
Truly, thought Annie. I’m luckier. Nobody in my life is so ugly. Not even Miss Bartten, or Dad. They’re people who want everything their own way, even if it hurts the rest of us. But they aren’t vicious.
Or are they? What would Mom say?
“Annie,” said Strat finally, close enough to her in his heart to use the precious nickname, “does my poor Harriett think I have abandoned her?”
“I don’t know. Devonny didn’t know. I bet Walk stole Harriett’s letters to Devonny too.”
“We will go to Harriett then,” said Strat. He was relieved, actually. It gave them a destination, and a very important one. He wasn’t running away if he went to Harriett. He was her knight, her soldier, her fiancé.
“But Strat,” protested Annie, “Walk will guess that that’s where you’d go. Won’t the police just follow us? Or be waiting for us? I think we should head for some city where we can vanish, and go see Harriett later.”
For a few moments, he simply held on to her, fingering her silky hair, wondering what it could be like to live in a Time where disease was conquered. “There might not be a later for Harriett,” he said tiredly. Oh Dear God, he prayed, for suddenly God was dear, and so was life, and so were Harriett and Annie; Dear God, let me reach Harriett in time.
The mantel clock chimed five.
Annie felt ambushed by Time and by facts. I am taking the man I love to the woman who loves him, she realized. They are engaged. People do not take that lightly whatever century they occupy. I don’t want Harriett to have Strat now. Not after all this.
But what would I do with Strat after I have him? Take him home with me to my century, like a prize at the bottom of the cereal box? Or would I stay with him in his century? Flee to Canada or California?
Strat, I love you so! But where is the right way for us? There must be one, or Time would not have brought me here. But what is it? How can both Harriett and I have you?
“Get dressed,” instructed Strat. “These people probably have a cutter and a horse. We’ll leave money, as much as we can, so they cannot accuse us of stealing. Write a note. Explain that we cannot wait for them to get up.”
Annie was still doubtful. “I think it would be better if—”
Strat kissed her. It was not affection. It was a kiss to close her lips. “I know best, Anna Sophia. Don’t worry your little head anymore. You have done very well to get so far, and I’ll handle it from now on.”
She had the brief thought that being a gentleman in Strat’s Time was also being a very pushy chauvinist, but she set the thought aside, as many a woman had done, and let him handle it as he saw fit.
Annie’s dress had dried in a million wrinkles. It was torn in several places and stained everywhere. The coat had survived no better. One of the two capes was hanging from threads, so she ripped it away, and then the coat looked positively deformed. She appropriated Doctor’s plaid scarf, tying it around her head to protect her ears. Immediately she ceased to be a lady of wealth and station, and became an immigrant in pitiful hand-me-downs.
I’ll whip Strat into shape, she decided. He believes men are destined to be in charge and ladies exist to say Yes and Thank You. I’m glad so much has changed in a hundred years.
In thinking of her own mother, however, Annie was hard-pressed to be sure that anything had changed.
At any rate, when she went outdoors, not only was the cutter ready and the horse harnessed but Strat was paying the husband, and this arrangement seemed to be just fine with everybody, and even reasonable.
The man kindly gave them road directions for Clear Pond, including a way to bypass Saranac Village, and they were off, minutes before first light. The cutter skimmed over packed snow. The dawning sun exploded. A fireball of crimson. The sky matched the finest jewels from Tiffany’s.
In a few hours, they came to a village, where shops had begun to open. “We must bring Harriett a present,” Strat insisted, so they stopped at stores and finally settled on a candy box: fifty sticks in colors and flavors Annie hardly knew: black paregoric, yellow molasses, brown horehound, birch, sassafras, and vanilla cream.
They had luncheon at an inn by the side of a lake which had been plowed clear of snow. Big clumsy iceboats and skaters in bright red were slipping and sliding everywhere. Children were laughing, and bonfires on the shore were surrounded by people warming their hands. Sellers of hot chocolate were making the rounds. Annie loved the little kids’ skates: funny little two-knifed shoes. These kids stared in envy at the few who wore white lace-up boot skates. A few men were skating actually backward, and everybody was awestruck.
They were not at Olympic levels here. But they were happy.
Strat and Annie sat in a wonderful dining room—huge peeled logs wrapping an immense two-story fieldstone fireplace in which a fire as tall as Annie burned. They held hands and talked and watched the laughing children come and go.
“I’m so glad to see happy, normal people,” said Strat. “It’s been so long for me—happiness or normalcy.”
Happiness or normalcy, thought Annie Lockwood, with a little shiver. Shouldn’t they go together? Shouldn’t it be happiness and normalcy? Are we going to have to choose one or the other?
And Harriett—is she the one who will make Strat happy? Or am I?
And what do I want?
The sun turned the snow to ribbons of gold, and the shadows of balsam and birch belonged on Christmas cards. The sky was shot with glitter and the frozen waterfalls were museum pieces.
Clear Pond was quite literally around the next bend. It was the most beautiful mile of all the beautiful miles they had come. It had its own entry lane: a swooping white road cut into white snow walls. It had its own lake, of course, an unplowed expanse of snow with funny little tiny trees peeking out here and there, way out in the middle of the pond. The sanitarium buildings were constructed from rough-hewn vertical logs trimmed in wooden lace.
It wa
s exceptionally quiet, as if a president had died. All over the grounds, young men were leaning on their male nurses and having cigarettes or cigars or pipes. “They’re dying of lung disease and they still smoke?” said Annie.
Strat looked startled, as if there were no connection between smoke and lungs.
Annie and Strat found the main building and entered the office, where they were greeted by a woman dressed far better than Annie was.
“I am Hiram Stratton, Jr.,” said Strat. “I am engaged to Miss Harriett Ranleigh.”
The woman turned hard and disapproving. “And I,” she said, “am Mrs. Havers. Miss Harriett has written you over and over, Mr. Stratton, begging for your presence. You come now, when she is in the arms of death?”
Arms of death? How horrible! thought Annie. Does Death have arms? A long reach and thin fingers and sharp nails?
“No,” said Strat, too softly, as if his heart were lying with that syllable. It wasn’t really No. It was Yes, but I hoped I was wrong. “She can’t be. I can’t have come too late.”
He loves her! thought Annie, and her heart, too, lay crushed within that syllable.
“You have. What is your excuse for such vile behavior?” asked Mrs. Havers flatly.
If only we accused each other of vile behavior in my day, thought Annie. We’re too busy being politically correct to admit that some people are just vile. And Strat knows so many of them.
“I have been imprisoned,” said Strat, “in an asylum. Relatives wanted my money. They created lies about me and kidnapped me. No letter I wrote Harriett was ever mailed.”
He had forgotten Anna Sophia. He was entreating Mrs. Havers as if she were an angel of judgment. “I beg you to believe me.” He had never looked more appealing. His shaggy hair fell forward. His formal clothing hung around him with a sort of strength, as if he would fill it any moment. “I am perfectly safe, madam,” he said. “I love Harriett. I must be with her.”
The woman softened. “Yes,” she said. “You must.” For a moment, they were both angels: people doing their very best in a terrible situation.
Then, briskly, Mrs. Havers surveyed Annie and the wrinkled badly matched outfit. “Good. Another servant. Your name?”
Annie was so startled she told the truth. “Annie Lockwood.” I don’t think I want to be a servant, she thought. She expected Strat to deny this unwanted status. But he didn’t. As they left the office, Mrs. Havers said over her shoulder, “Lockwood! Carry those bags.”
What was with these people? On the one hand, they didn’t want you to lift an ungloved finger. On the other hand, if you were a servant, you’d better lift, and lift fast. No backtalk. Annie struggled to hoist a large assembly of cartons without hurting her back.
“Lockwood! Don’t dillydally.”
Annie grunted.
“She has no manners,” said the woman to Strat.
Strat apologized for Annie’s failure to say “Yes, ma’am.”
Being a lady was tons of fun, plus you got great hats. Being a servant had already worn thin. Annie wasn’t going to last long as a combination nurse and grocery cart. She wasn’t ready to say “Yes ma’am.” She was ready to tell Strat where to go, and how much to carry while he went there.
Walker Walkley could not believe how swiftly the tide had turned. The so-called police in Evergreen had found no frozen corpses. The so-called police in Saranac had found no trace of Strat and Miss Lockwood.
The only possibility now was Clear Pond, and Harriett Ranleigh. Miss Lockwood had retrieved Strat like a duck from a pond, and even now Strat was probably controlling Harriett. What if Harriett were swept to health by the mere presence of Strat? Where would her money go then? To Strat! Not Walk!
Devonny had engineered this. A vixen with no intention of marrying Walk, just a lying conniving female.
I will have that money, Walk thought over and over. The money glistened in his mind. It was the color of the ice under the sun. The color of silver and gold.
But at last, in Evergreen of all unlikely places, he had an ally.
Dr. Wilmott said, “I beg of you, Mr. Walkley. Permit me to go with you to Clear Pond. I, too, have scores to settle, and an inmate to return to his cell.”
“Perhaps, Wilmott,” said Walk, who considered doctors merely educated servants, “you will have room for another inmate.”
“I am sure we could accommodate Miss Lockwood,” said Dr. Wilmott. “Of course, there is the matter of payment.”
“Bill me,” said Walker Walkley.
Annie was shocked.
No gentle pallor, no rosy cheeks, no sweet fading girl.
How could this be Harriett? The Harriett of Annie’s other trip through Time had danced and played croquet and raced upstairs and strolled on the beach.
Harriett’s face was hollow and gaunt. Her limbs had become sticks from which muscles had melted off, leaving only skin. Each joint was a knot on a twig. Her fingers were bone, covered with white parchment. Harriett was gasping, her lungs too compromised to fill. The room was harsh with the sucking struggle for air.
So this was why they called it consumption. It had eaten Harriett.
Harriett stared at the man before her, throwing his greatcoat and hat and gloves to the invisible servant—Annie. “Strat,” Harriett breathed. “Oh, Strat. Oh, thank you. Oh, dear sweet God, thank you.” Harriett was addressing them both at once: God and Strat. She had no more voice than she had flesh: there was only a whisper of her left to the world.
Strat sat on the edge of her bed and wrapped her and her blankets in his arms. Rocking her back and forth, he murmured, “Harriett, Harriett. I cannot believe this happened to either of us. Harriett, I loved you all along. I truly did.” He kissed her lips, which no healthy person must ever do with a consumptive.
But Annie was glad. Yes, this was right. It would be like Sleeping Beauty. Strat was Prince Charming. He would kiss away death and sorrow.
She loved it: a fairy-tale ending, and everybody living happily ever after.
Except me, she thought. What am I supposed to do?
Strat kissed Harriett’s thin, dry hair and the hands so weak they could not press back against his. Gently and briefly, he told her what had happened to him, the dreadful reasons he had not been at her side before.
“Oh, Strat,” said Harriett, her thready voice thicker from relief. “You have been suffering too. I didn’t know. I thought you had found another to love.”
I’m the other, thought Annie. Harriett thought that I … and I would have. I love Strat. I want to be his other. But there is no way to divide a man. No matter which century.
Annie pressed against the wall. Harriett had not thought to glance at her. In this clothing, she was merely a person to change the linen, fill the hot water bottle, and stoke the stove.
“You will get well now, darling Harriett,” said Strat.
In every motion of their embrace was their history together: for Strat and Harriett had known each other from childhood, and when she was orphaned, Harriett had become Mr. Stratton’s ward, and Harriett and Devonny had been best friends, and it had always been expected that Strat and Harriett would wed.
Only the appearance of Anna Sophia Lockwood in 1895 had interrupted the flow of events.
But I’ve put it back together, thought Annie. All the king’s horses and all the king’s men—who needs them? Just call me.
“I will take you away, Harriett,” said Strat. “I know doctors approve of ice-cold air for the lungs, but I have been cold this winter and I have come to believe in warmth. I will take you to Mexico. Think of heat, Harriett, and golden sun. Think of love, and our children, and the home we will make for them.”
Annie’s soul leaped a hundred years. Was Daddy saying this to Miss Bartten? Were they planning a vacation in Mexico, thinking up baby names for a new family? But what about our family? cried Annie. The people who come first should stay first!
“I have thought of nothing else for so long,” said Harriett. She found
the strength to touch his cheek. In her terrible wasted condition, she became somehow beautiful: love did transform her.
And it was not her own love, because she had loved Strat all along; it was Strat’s love, confirming that Harriett mattered, that he adored her.
“Would you leave us?” said Strat to the nurse and to Annie. The nurse, whose nametag said MOSS, took Annie’s arm and led her out of the sickroom. Annie did not mind. She hurt all over, for love was too complex and went in too many directions and involved too many people.
I want true love to save Harriett, she thought.
But I want true love for myself.
Strat’s true love.
In the asylum at Evergreen, Katie did not cry. The loss of Strat was too great and awful for mere tears. Strat’s company had held her together against the assault of the asylum.
God forgive me this sin, she thought. Strat has escaped and instead of rejoicing for him, I want him caught and brought back.
How did he get out? she wondered. Is he all right? Is he warm? Has winter hurt him? Is he having the dinner of roast beef and gravy that he wanted so much? Is he among decent people who use courtesy and kindness?
What is kindness? Shall I ever know it again, now that Strat is gone?
The door opened.
For a terrible moment—the worst her soul had had—she wanted it to be Strat.
But it was a woman, thin and gray and angry, shrieking, “You cannot do this to me! I have done nothing to merit this! Let go of me!”
Of course Ralph and Dr. Wilmott paid no attention but enclosed her in the crib.
Katie turned her head. This is my life, she thought. One lunatic after another, their screams no different from the last set of screams.
Douglass made his lonely sounds and scruffled toward her and Katie tried to sing a song of comfort, but they were both beyond that now.
Moss fixed a pot of tea. She did not take a tray to Harriett and Strat. Annie was not fond of tea, which in her opinion was discolored water, but she enjoyed the heat of the pretty little cup and the act of holding its tiny curly handle as she lifted it in a ladylike way to her lips.