“No!” Howard and Awful said together. Awful was surprised enough to pick up her mug and drink without thinking. Her eyebrows went up. “This is nice now! It tastes of strawberry!”
Howard thought he saw a little smile on Hathaway’s face as Hathaway bent over the book, but all he said was “Ah. This is it. Catriona Moneypenny does descend from William. Marries Quentin Jocelin Sykes in 1967. Children—” Hathaway’s green eyes flicked to Howard for a moment in a startled way and then back to the book. “Howard Graham and Anthea Mildred Dolores,” he said.
“Why did you look at Howard like that?” Awful demanded.
“Like what?” said Hathaway.
“Surprised,” said Awful. “Is it something children shouldn’t know?”
Hathaway’s face flushed a little. He looked worried. “No, no,” he said. “It’s only—well, if your parents haven’t told you, it would not be right for me—”
“What?” said Howard.
Hathaway seemed more worried still. “Now you’re thinking all sorts of terrible things,” he said. “It’s nothing. Truly. Have they never told you that you were adopted?”
“No,” said Howard, and for a moment the ground felt as if it were falling away underneath him. Suddenly he did not seem to be who he thought he was. He did not know who he was. He saw Hathaway looking at him with concern, but he did not want to look at him or at anyone else.
“Oh, I know that!” Awful said, scornful and relieved. “Mum told me once when I bit her. She said she wished she could have chosen me like she chose Howard. She”—Awful had the grace to go red here—“she said she’d have chosen someone else.”
“I wish you’d said!” Howard said.
“Sorry.” Awful hung her head. “Mum told me not to. She knew you’d be upset.”
“Drink some more wine,” said Hathaway. “I know a little how you feel. My family always swore I was a changeling.” Howard swigged off the spicy wine. He was not sure it helped. Meanwhile, Hathaway glanced at the sand filtering through the waist of the hourglass. “You haven’t much longer here,” he said, “I can keep people from your time as they are for an hour, but beyond that I don’t let anyone risk himself.”
“Why?” said Awful.
Hathaway smiled in a quiet, rueful way, which had just a trace of Archer’s smile in it. “Because the longer anyone stays in the past, the older he becomes in his own present day. You won’t want to go home a grown woman, will you?” Awful stared at him, not believing it. “It’s true,” said Hathaway. “I found out the hard way. After two years here I was an old, old man in your time—and I don’t age as fast as you would. After all the years I’ve spent here now, I think I would not be alive in your time at all.”
“But don’t you mind?” said Awful. “How long have you been here?”
Hathaway shrugged. “I’ve been here nearly thirty years now. I don’t mind much. Some things I miss, but I’m pretty happily settled here, as you see. And I’ve got things well organized, so that I can keep in touch and run the things in your century that I said I would. Mind you”—he laughed a little—“I wouldn’t have stayed in the past for those two years if I’d known. It always puzzles me how Venturus manages, living in the future as he does.”
“Living in the future?” said Awful. “People can’t. It hasn’t happened yet.”
“I don’t think he lives as far ahead as I live back,” Hathaway said. “Only a hundred years or so. But of course, I haven’t seen him for years.”
“But why did you come to the past?” persisted Awful. By now she had absentmindedly drunk most of her strawberry wine and was feeling very chirpy—with a large furry feeling that she loved Hathaway greatly, particularly now she knew he was a sort of grandfather of hers.
“Why did I?” Hathaway reached out musingly and moved Awful’s wine mug a long way away from her. “You might say I’m the odd one out in my family, but that’s not quite true. I always got on with the three younger ones rather well. I suppose it was after I had such a flaming row with Torquil—”
“He quarrels just like me,” Awful said, sitting very upright, with her eyes shining. “I don’t mean it either. I wish people understood.”
Hathaway smiled. “That will be enough from you, young madam.” He clearly did not want to discuss Torquil. He turned to Howard. “There are things I have to say to your brother now. Howard, what purpose do those two thousand words serve?”
Howard came out of his daze of strangeness, rather shamed to see that Hathaway had kindly been allowing him time to feel better. “I thought you knew,” he said. “You’re the one who got Dad to do them, after all.”
“Oh, no,” said Hathaway. “It wasn’t me. I said it because, upon thought, it seemed the speediest way to get hold of a sample. If I’d known what your father was like—”
“Archer thought one of you had doctored the typewriter,” said Howard.
“This?” Hathaway reached a hand to the typewriter Anne had pushed to the end of the table. “No. It’s just an ordinary typewriter. So”—he looked almost beseechingly at Howard—“how is it being done? Why are we being confined in space and time like this?”
“In time?” said Howard. “You aren’t. Well, at least—”
“I forget. The others probably don’t know,” said Hathaway. “Sitting here in the past, in the sixteenth century, I know that twenty-six years have gone by since we were first confined to the town. Up in your century, it only seems thirteen years—you have had the same thirteen years twice.”
“Erskine knew,” said Howard. “And Archer suspected. The others didn’t say.”
“You’re stuck in the town, too?” Awful asked, catching up with the talk a little late. Everything had slowed down for her.
Hathaway nodded. “Some of it is merely annoying,” he said. “If Bess goes to see her father out at the castle, the children can go, but I have to make my excuses. But I long to go abroad.” He looked sad and wistful. “What truly saddens me is that I can never see Anne again after she marries and leaves here.”
Awful asked, with a look of low cunning, “Don’t you want to farm the world?”
“This world? In this century?” Hathaway laughed. “A man is lucky if he can rule one country here! Besides, what do you do with the world when you have it? Archer seems mad to me. No, I certainly have no such ambitions.”
Howard was sure Hathaway meant this. He felt angry on Hathaway’s behalf, as well as for Mum and Dad and himself. The person causing all this seemed so spiteful. “I’m going to find out who it is,” he said. “Somehow. Who do you think it is?”
Hathaway pushed aside the book and the plate of cakes and leaned his elbows on the table thoughtfully. “I think it is someone unexpected,” he said. “We’d have found them out if it were one of the obvious ones, like Shine or Torquil. If I were one of my brothers and sisters, I’d think it was me. But since I know it isn’t me, well, it could be Dillian. She hasn’t done anything with the words she stole, and she could have stolen them as a blind. If she did, that was foolish because it alerted all the rest. And from what I know of Dillian, I think she would be angrier than most at being confined. She hates farming law and order, you know. She’s always yearned to be lawless, like Shine.” Hathaway glanced at the hourglass. The sand was well below its last quarter, filtering away fast. “I’m considering our characters,” he said. “And it interests me that neither Erskine nor Venturus has threatened your father. It’s almost as if they want you to suspect them. That suggests to me that they’re covering up for a third person. And I think that person has to be Archer. Venturus, being the youngest, admires Archer almost to the point of worship. He tries to imitate Archer—”
The way Hathaway said this made Howard feel that Hathaway was trying to tell him something else, something behind the actual words. But he had not a clue to what it could be. “Archer swore it wasn’t him,” he said. “I thought he was being honest.”
“Everyone blames Archer,” Awful said in vast, weary
wisdom, as if she were at least ninety.
“I know,” Hathaway said, with a soft, apologetic movement. He looked at Howard earnestly. “But you wouldn’t believe how often Archer has played on that—doing his honest, injured, wry act. Who me? You know. And so he is honest, but with Archer you have to watch what he doesn’t say. And if he hasn’t told you definitely that Erskine and Venturus are not doing his dirty work for him, then the person you want is Archer.”
That look of Hathaway’s made Howard surer than ever that Hathaway was trying to tell him something else, but he still could not see what it was. What he said about Archer was enough to worry about in itself. “How could anyone stop Archer?” he said. “He seems so powerful.”
“Erskine might,” said Hathaway. “Erskine’s the only one of us who can really stand up to Archer. I’ll try to get a message to Erskine, but I strongly advise you and your father to see Erskine, too.” He looked at the hourglass again and pushed his chair back. “You must be going now.”
Awful scrambled from her stool with slow dignity. Howard, as he got up, remembered the letter from the city treasurer. “By the way,” he said, “are you the one who found out Dad hasn’t paid his taxes? He got a bill for thousands of pounds this morning.”
Hathaway went red. It was almost the way Archer did. Surprise and annoyance and some guilt swept across his face. “I was going to do that!” he said. “It would have been my next move. Someone else got in first. That’s really annoying! Now what can we do about that?”
“It’s the last straw for Dad,” Howard said.
Hathaway crossed to the door and opened it. Howard followed, admiring the way Hathaway’s padded blue robe swung comfortably about him. Living in the past had its points. Dad would have loved that robe as a dressing gown. “It’s difficult,” Hathaway said, going with them into the rest of the house. “It’s easier to start the Council on a thing like that than to stop it. I’ll think about it. And I suppose you’ll want me to call off the road menders?”
“Yes, please,” said Howard.
“I’ll do it at once,” said Hathaway.
They went through the house. Awful trod with unnatural dignity behind. The house was full of bustle and voices. Somebody was singing in the distance and clattering dishes. There was a smell of food cooking, mixing with wax and smoke and scents coming in through the open door to the garden.
“I like this house,” Howard said.
Bess was standing by the open door to say good-bye. She heard Howard and sank into a deep curtsy, smiling with pride and pleasure. Howard did his best to bow back. Awful bent her head majestically. It was all she dared do.
Outside, in the gathering evening, Anne and the little boy were hiding in the garden, watching them. There was only one little boy, Howard realized. He had just kept appearing all over the place. As Hathaway took them through the garden to the farmyard, Anne and William kept pace with them behind hedges and shrubs. Howard could hear them rustling and giggling. It was not meant to be rude. William was too shy to come out.
“It would be easier to provide your father with the money he owes,” Hathaway remarked as they came to the barnyard, “than to stop the Council from asking for it.”
Howard remembered a book he had read. “Couldn’t you bury some money where our garden’s going to be, and I could dig it up tomorrow?”
Hathaway laughed. “Yes, if I could stop someone else from finding it during the four centuries in between! No. There must be a better way. I’ll consider.”
The man in the smock was grooming the horse in the middle of the yard. The hens had all gone to roost. Howard could hear hennish croonings in the background, while Hathaway exchanged a couple of jokes with the man. It was all in the thick accent of the past, which Howard found impossible to follow. They crossed the cobbles to the museum door. On this side it was a small white door in the wall, less than half the size of the big main gate beside it.
Hathaway opened the door for them. “Come to me again,” he said, “if you get into difficulties. I’ll help in any way I can.” Again, the way he said this gave Howard a strong feeling that there was something else Hathaway knew, which he was trying to tell him without saying directly.
“Thanks,” Howard said, to both parts of it, the said and the unsaid. He was still wondering what Hathaway meant when he found himself in the dingy little space with the dead butterflies. The door marked “CURATOR” was just shutting behind them.
Chapter Twelve
Hathaway really had no need to make threats or dig up the road, Howard thought. If he could have come to see Quentin himself, Dad would surely have been on Hathaway’s side. Hathaway was—
Suspicion hit Howard. He stopped between two cases of butterflies, frowning. Shine had tried to get them on her side. Shine had said Hathaway was sneaky. Could he have worked quietly away inside Howard’s head as they talked? He thought over their visit and wished he knew. Hathaway, in his quieter way, had been as plain and straightforward as Archer. And that worried Howard. He had been alerted to the things that were wrong with Archer by the look on Quentin’s face. He wished Quentin had been with him this time, to tell him about Hathaway. He was not at all sure he could be right on his own.
Hathaway had been reasonable and understanding. Far from trying to keep them in the past, he had made sure they spent only the hour there that was safe. He had agreed to call off the road menders. The one unpleasant thing he had done—which was something Howard did not want to think about yet—was to tell Howard he was an adopted child. And that had surprised Hathaway, too. But that all could have been part of it, Howard told himself worriedly. How could you judge people like Hathaway, Shine, or Archer in the normal way? He felt confused and lonely and desperately wanted Mum or Dad to advise him.
Wait a minute! Mum always said that you could tell what people were like by their houses. Howard found himself thinking of the pleasant, lived-in house and the people busy in the garden. It could not have been more different from Archer’s workshop, Dillian’s palace, or Shine’s dark den. Hathaway really did seem different from the others. And it was quite natural that they would not understand him and despised him for it.
Howard walked on into the Saxon exhibition, very much relieved. Awful, who had been valiantly sober up to then, stomped after him unsteadily. Beside the skeletons, she announced, “Nobody loves me!”
“Don’t talk nonsense!” said Howard.
“I’m not norking tonsense!” Awful retorted.
In the foyer she found it necessary to lie down and laugh.
“Do get up, Awful,” said Howard. But Awful lay on her back, kicking her feet up, and seemed to be laughing and crying at once. Howard looked around to find the attendant standing beside him, looking reproachful.
“Would you mind moving her?” he said to Howard. “We’re just closing.”
Howard tried to make Awful get up, but all she did was roll over on her face. “I’m going to be sick,” she said.
“No, you’re not. Not in here,” Howard said. He got hold of Awful under her arms and heaved her up. Awful had somehow gone unusually heavy. Her legs trailed. Howard heaved and dragged her across the foyer and managed to back out through the swing door with her. Awful found this very funny. She laughed all the way.
Outside, it was nearly dark and very much colder than it had been in Hathaway’s time. To Howard’s relief, the Goon was still leaning on one of the stone lions. Ginger Hind was leaning on the other stone lion, glowering at the Goon; that was not so good, but there was not much Howard could do about it. Both their heads turned in surprise as Howard backed out, towing Awful.
“Something wrong,” stated the Goon.
“Awful’s got herself drunk,” Howard explained.
“Sell wine in museums these days?” the Goon asked, puzzled.
“No.” Howard ignored the malicious grin growing on Ginger’s face. “We saw Hathaway, and he gave us both some wine. Do you think you could carry her? She’s gone heavy.”
r /> “Know I can carry her,” said the Goon. He stepped over and scooped Awful up with no trouble at all. “Didn’t know Hathaway lived here,” he remarked as he did so.
Awful suddenly noticed what was happening. “Put me down!” she screamed, kicking and struggling mightily. “I don’t want you! I like Hathaway best!” The Goon looked rather hurt at this, but he nevertheless set out across the museum yard with Awful’s arms and legs whirling around him in all directions and Howard trotting after. Behind Howard came Ginger Hind, grinning all over his bruised face. “I want Hathaway to carry me!” screamed Awful.
“Go on,” said the Goon. “You like me, too.”
“No, I don’t! I want Hathawa-ay!” Awful wailed.
“Shut up, Awful,” Howard said, trotting alongside. “You know Hathaway lives in the past. You’re hurting the Goon’s feelings.”
Awful at once became hugely contrite. She flung her arms around the Goon’s neck and burst into tears. “I like you, too!” she blubbered at the top of her voice. “I do, I do. You’re a lovely Goon. You’re my favorite Goon in all the world!”
The Goon’s face, under the next streetlight, was an unusual brick color. Howard was horribly aware of Ginger Hind trotting a few yards in the rear, listening and grinning for all he was worth. He was resigned to Shine’s knowing they had seen Hathaway, but this was a bit much. “Do shut up, Awful!” he said.
But Awful continued to shout endearments at the Goon, all the way past the Poly and halfway along Zed Alley, where she passed quite suddenly into a loglike sleep and snored, with her wet face pressed against the Goon’s neck and the rest of her dangling. The Goon was afraid to disturb her and carried her like that in giant tiptoe strides all the way home. Howard followed the Goon, and Ginger Hind followed Howard, until the Goon made the final giant stride across Hathaway’s moat and went into the side passage of number 10.