She took off with amazing speed. Definitely not a girl who waited for anybody.
“Stop!” he yelled. “You’re going too fast!” She was safe at that speed as long as she didn’t meet horses coming up, but once she reached the bottom of the Great Hill, she’d be on gravel and the wheels would fly out from under her. He wondered if ghosts could break bones.
Strat pedaled furiously to catch up. The two of them flew down the curve and out onto the lane. Neither fell, but she had to stick both feet out to steady herself. Her skirt flared up wonderfully and he was shocked but happy.
He caught up.
They pedaled next to each other for a full minute, and then she stopped dead, so fast he nearly went over his handlebars. She balanced on her toes like a ballerina and they stared at each other.
Strat was entranced. She was his possession; his mirage; his very own beautiful half-ghost. “Good afternoon,” said Strat.
“Who are you?” she said, as if greeting an exotic Red Indian.
“Hiram Stratton, Junior,” he said cheerfully.
“I’m Annie Lockwood. What’s going on? Everything is really strange. Like, where are the picnic grounds? Where are the parking lots? What happened to the traffic? And what on earth are you wearing?”
Strat felt that since it was his estate, he should be the one to ask questions. Irritated but courteous (a boy on stepmother number three and boarding school roommate number eleven knew how to be polite even when extremely irritated), Strat said, “I’m not sure to what you are referring, Miss Lockwood. But you just walked right through my home, room by room, when my own personal plan called for having iced lemonade.”
She rewarded him with a wonderful smile, infectious and friendly. He had to smile back. Poor Harriett’s teeth stuck out and overlapped. Miss Lockwood’s smile was white and perfect and full of delight. She would never have to keep her lips closed when the photographer came. “Iced lemonade sounds wonderful,” she told him. “I have had a super weird day. And I am so sweaty,” she confided.
Strat was appalled. What lady would say that word? Horses might sweat, but ladies were dewy.
“What are you wearing?” she asked again, looking down at his trousers as if he were as undressed as she.
He was wearing perfectly ordinary knee-length breeches. A perfectly ordinary white shirt, with lots of room in it, was neatly tucked in in spite of the chase she had just led.
Strat considered his lemonade offer. He was not willing to take Miss Lockwood back to the house. Share her with his sister, or Harriett, or Florinda, or his father, or Aunt Ada or the staff? Never. There was no way he could possibly explain what he had just seen. The birth of a ghost? Besides, she was his. He wanted to find out who she was, and how she got here, and he wanted her to be his own personal possession.
“Let’s cycle into the village,” he said. “I’ll take you to the ice cream parlor. We’ll have a soda.”
“Deal,” she said unfathomably. “Do I call you Hiram? You must have a nickname. I mean, they couldn’t have saddled you with the name Hiram and then called you that.”
“The boys call me Strat,” he said uncertainly. Girls, of course, called him Mr. Stratton. Even Harriett, whom he had known forever, and who was now his own father’s ward, called him Strat only in small gatherings, and never when there were strangers around.
But the girl had no qualms about getting familiar. “Strat,” she repeated, smiling again, giving him the strangest shiver of desire. “Let’s race. I’ll win.” She took off.
Strat could not believe this. Let’s race? I’ll win? Girls weren’t allowed to do either one!
To his shame, it was immediately clear that Miss Lockwood might just do both. Strat took off after her and the contest was fierce. Gravel spurted from their tires. Wind picked up her long unbound hair so it flowed out behind her like some wonderful drawing. Strat stood up on the pedals and churned hard. There was no way he would tolerate a beating by a girl who hadn’t even existed ten minutes ago!
But the race ended long before they reached the village, for Miss Lockwood stopped short, staring at the gatehouse.
Brown-shingled, intricately turreted, it was a miniature of the Mansion. Its long arm crossed the lane to prevent unwanted carriages from entering. The gatekeeper smiled from the watch window. “Good afternoon, sir.”
Strat waved.
“What is this?” said Miss Lockwood. She was so frightened she was angry.
“The gatehouse,” he said soothingly. “You must have passed it on your way in.” But she didn’t come by bike, he thought, nor by carriage, nor by boat. I saw her. She came by …
Strat had no idea how she had come, only that he had been there when it happened. Where had her bike come from? He had witnessed her arrival and there had been no bike. He did not exactly feel fear, but rather a confusion so deep he didn’t want to get near the edge of it.
“There is no building like this,” she said, her voice getting high. “And that field. And that meadow. Where are the houses?”
“The land’s been sold for building,” agreed Strat. He tried to keep his voice level and comforting, the way he did with Florinda during fainting fits. “It’s become fashionable to build by the water. Two or three years, and we’ll have neighbors here.”
She really stared at him now. It was unladylike, her degree of concentration on him. “Strat, who are you?” Her voice wasn’t ladylike either; it demanded an answer.
It unsettled him to be called Strat by a person who had known him only moments. “I think a more interesting point is who you are, Miss Lockwood. And where you came from. When I followed you, as you trespassed in my house, you were—” He couldn’t say it. Half there? Nonsense. It was too foolish. Too female.
“When I felt the cushions and the drapes, I couldn’t believe it,” she said. “They were real and I was there. Velvet and silk.”
Strat wanted to touch her velvet cheek, and stroke her silken hair. He had never wanted to touch anything so much.
Am I just curious to see if she’s real, he thought, or is this love?
He desperately wanted to find out what love was. Things with Harriett were so settled and ordinary. Strat wanted something breathless and wonderful.
Perhaps I shall fall in love with Miss Lockwood, he thought. True love, not just being attentive to Harriett.
His sister, Devonny, was an expert in affairs of the heart, but Devonny said Strat did not get to participate, as he simply belonged to Harriett and that was his only heart possibility.
One more look at Miss Lockwood and Strat wanted her as his heart possibility. “Let’s leave the bikes here, Miss Lockwood,” he said, fighting for breath as if she had pulled him underwater. “Let’s walk on the sand.”
And she said “Yes,” taking his hand as if they had known each other for years.
Harriett and Devonny went through the sheet music, planning what each girl would play on the piano for the singing that night. Harriett and Devonny had very different tastes. Harriett liked sad ballads where everybody died by verse six and on verse seven you wept for them. Devonny liked madcap dances where you couldn’t get the words out fast enough to match the chords she played.
Harriett did not tell Devonny how upset she was. It was very important, when you were a lady, to hide emotions and maintain a calm and dignified face. If you were to frown and glare and grimace, your complexion would be ruined and you would get wrinkles early.
But Strat, she had clearly seen from the window, had gone cycling with some girl in a white sports costume. How much easier tennis would be in an outfit that short. But it was unthinkable to display your limbs like that. Harriett could not imagine who the girl might be.
It couldn’t be a servant; Harriett knew all of them; and they would be let go immediately were they to dress so improperly or even for a moment to entertain a thought of romance with young Mr. Stratton.
Of course you read novels in which the Irish serving girl fell in love with the milli
onaire’s son and they ran off together, and Harriett loved that sort of book, but in real life it was not acceptable. Especially her real life. And the Irish serving girl they had, Bridget, was even now holding the parasol for Florinda’s stroll through the garden, so it was not Bridget out there with Strat.
Harriett did not usually like to face the beveled mirrors that were omnipresent in the ballroom, but she forced herself. Harriett was plain and her teeth stuck out. She was two years older than Strat. She did not have a wasp waist like Devonny. No matter how tightly Bridget yanked the corset, Harriett remained solid. Her hair was on the thin side, and did not take well to the new fashions. She had always expected to pin false ringlets into her hair where necessary. But of course she had to reach womanhood when the style became simpler, and women fluffed their hair on top of their heads, plumping it out like Gibson girls. Harriett’s hair neither plumped nor fluffed.
Sweet Strat always complimented her anyway. How lovely you look, he would say. How glad I am to see you, Harriett.
And he was glad to see her, and he did spend many hours with her, and he even put up with Aunt Ada.
But underneath, Harriett was always afraid. What if she did not get married? Of course, with her wealth, she would find some husband, somewhere. But she did not want some husband somewhere. She wanted Strat, here.
The mirrors cut her into fragments and multiplied her throughout the ballroom. Wherever she turned, she saw how plain and dull she was. Don’t cry, she reminded herself. Don’t slouch.
These were the rules Aunt Ada gave Harriett, when what Harriett yearned for was love.
Devonny would have reported in to Harriett if Strat had ever said he was thinking of another girl. The family assumed that Strat and Harriett would wed, but the fact remained that Strat had never, by the slightest syllable, suggested such a thing.
And he was eighteen now, and she twenty.
He should, by now, have suggested such a thing.
She did not want him going to Yale. All those other young men would have sisters. Beautiful sisters, no doubt. And each needing a railroad baron’s son in wedlock. Strat would go to parties without Harriett, and be dazzled by beauties especially prepared to snag him. And one of them might—for the rich and beautiful chose each other, and Harriett, although richest of all, was plain.
She wished they didn’t use that word wedlock. It sounded very locked up and very locked in.
Unless you were Strat’s father, of course, who unlocked every marriage as soon as he arrived in it. He was the only man Harriett had ever met who had actually had a divorce, and he had had three of them. Would son be like father? Would she be sorry, wedlocked to Strat?
Pretending an errand, Harriett left Devonny at the piano and ran up the great staircase and down the guest wing, praying no houseguest would hear her footsteps and join her. The highest tower had its own narrow twist of steps, and the fullness of her skirts made climbing it difficult. The tower had two window seats (the influence of the first Mrs. Stratton reached everywhere) and also a tiny desk, a telescope for viewing ships and birds and stars, and beautifully bound blank journals for making entries about those birds and stars. Apparently nobody was all that fascinated by natural history because the journals remained blank.
At the top she could turn in a circle and see the entire island.
Mr. Stratton senior, of course, had built a causeway linking the island to the village, but Harriett still thought of it as an island, because when she was a little girl, it could be reached only at low tide, ladies lifting their skirts in a most unseemly way, and children darting among the horseshoe crabs.
There, on the long white stretch of sand, where fragrant beach grass stopped and tidal debris began, walked Strat and the unknown girl … arm in arm.
Be ladylike, Harriett said to herself. Do not spy on your dearest friend. Take this calmly and return to the piano.
She focused the telescope. It displayed Strat and his beautiful stranger sitting together in the sand. After a bit they crawled forward to where the sand was still wet from the tide, to build a castle. The girl kicked off her shoes and was barefoot in the sand.
I will not cry, said Harriett to herself. I will not let him know that I saw. I will not ask. I will mind my manners.
She burst into tears anyway. I will so ask! Who does he think he is! He can’t—
But he could, of course.
It was his estate, and the barefoot girl was his guest, and he was not affianced to Harriett, and he had all the rights, and Harriett had none.
“What are you doing up here?” said Devonny. “Goodness, Harriett, you’re all puffy-eyed! What’s the matter?” Devonny searched the view and immediately saw what was the matter.
“Harriett!” she shrieked. “Who is that girl? Look what they’re doing! Harriett, what are they doing? I’ve never seen anybody do that! Harriett, who is she?”
She is, thought Harriett, the end of my hopes.
CHAPTER 3
Annie had no pockets, but Strat’s were deep and saggy, so she filled them with beach treasure—mermaids’ tears. Sand-smoothed broken glass brought in by the tide. When she slipped her hand into his pocket, Strat tensed as if she were doing something daring, and then let out his breath as if she were the treat of a lifetime. He looked at her the way Annie had always dreamed a boy would look at her: as if she were a work of art, the best one in the world.
Strat’s hair was blunt cut in an unfamiliar way. Longish, somehow, even though lots of boys Annie knew wore their hair much longer. His shirt collar was open, the collar itself larger than collars should be. His pants were high-waisted, instead of slung down toward the hips, and his suspenders were real, actually holding the pants up, instead of decorating his shirt.
Annie concentrated on details, because the large event was beyond thought. If she began adding things up, she would get a very strange number, a number she did not want to have. Yet she certainly wanted to have Strat. “Strat,” she repeated. It suited him. He was both jock and preppie, both formal and informal.
He arranged her hand lightly on his forearm, joining himself to her in a distant, well-mannered way. Down the sand they walked.
The beach wasn’t right. There were dunes. The beach Annie knew had been flattened by a million bare feet. Here, the tide line was littered with driftwood from shipwrecks and mounds of oyster shells, as if no beach crew raked and no day campers collected treasure.
Nobody was there except Annie and the boy from the Mansion.
Nobody.
Even on the most frigid bleak day in January, Stratton Point wouldn’t be empty. You’d have your photography nut, your birding group, your idiot who plunged into the water all twelve months of the year, your joggers and miscellaneous appreciators of nature.
Absolutely nobody else was on the half mile of white sand. In spite of the heat, Annie trembled.
“Miss Lockwood,” Strat began.
She loved the Miss Lockwood stuff. It took away the shivers and made her giggle.
There was a courtliness to Strat that she’d never seen in a man or a boy. He was treating her like a fragile dried rose. A contrast to Sean, who often told (not asked) her to throw his toolbox in the back of the truck for him.
The sun caught her eyes, blinding her for a moment, and she pulled back her hair to see him better. His features were heavier than Sean’s, firmer, somehow more demanding.
“Please forgive me any rudeness, Miss Lockwood, but I am unsure …” His voice trailed off, his mouth slightly open, waiting for a really good phrase. His nose was sunburned.
He is so handsome, thought Annie. If I’d ever seen him before in my life, I would certainly remember. And I would remember the gatehouse, if it existed. What happened here? Who is he? And who am I?
“I was there when you arrived,” he said finally. “And I am unsure about what I saw.”
The only possibility was too ridiculous to say out loud. I fell down, Strat, and I think the fall was not between standi
ng and sitting. I think it was between centuries.
Right.
“I’m pretty unsure myself, Strat,” she said. “What is going on? Do you know? I’ve lost track of some time here. Maybe a whole lot of time. Don’t laugh at me.”
“I would not dream of laughing, Miss Lockwood,” he promised, and now his features were earnest, worried and respectful.
Annie tried to imagine any boy on the football team or in the cafeteria talking as courteously as Strat. They’d be more apt to swear as they demanded information.
Far to the east, the thunderstorm quickstepped out to the ocean, black clouds roiling over black clouds. Above Strat and Annie, the sky turned lavender blue, not a single remaining wisp of cloud.
It’s a dream, she thought. I’m having an electric storm of the mind, just as the sky had its electrical storm. Little flashes of story are sparking through. Nothing makes sense in dreams, so I don’t have to worry about sense.
But she had senses, the other kind, in this dream: touch and feel, smell and taste. The smell, especially, of a beach at low tide. Hot summery salt and seaweed. You did not carry smell into your dreams. “I know we’re at Stratton Point,” she said carefully.
He raised his eyebrows. He looked wicked for a moment, capable of anything, and then he grinned again and looked capable mainly of being adorable. “I’m a Stratton,” he said, “but we call the estate Llanmarwick.”
“I’ve lived in the village all my life, and I’ve never heard anybody use that word.”
“Well, we certainly get our supplies delivered. Llanmarwick with two l’s,” said Strat cheerfully. “Mama got it from a novel about Wales. I do believe it’s a fake word. Of course Florinda would like to change it. She wants to call it Sea Mere, but Devonny and I are fighting to keep Llanmarwick.”
Annie felt no shyness, the way she normally would with a strange boy, or even a very well-known boy, because so little was normal here. “Let’s sit,” she whispered, pulling him down beside her in the hot comforting sand. Were his cute little knickers really corduroy? Could she feel him? Or like the half-there furnishings of the Mansion, was he insubstantial? She explored him with an interest she had never felt for Sean, and Strat turned out to be substantial indeed.