Overseas

  I hadn’t told him. What would have been the use? He wasn’t going to change his plans, decline his duty as an officer, renounce his every principle. Better to let him go on thinking he could trick fate, foil divine will; that by shifting the time of his raid or by some other petty adjustment, he could avoid Hollander’s reach. That he could stay in this century, return to me, marry me, and be a father to our child. A beautiful dream; why not let him hold on to it until the end?

  I could scarcely move in that narrow bed. I lay pressed against his drowsy flesh, cheek to toe, and watched him sleep, gazing at his dear familiar face in the faint light from the moon outside the thinly curtained window. This man-child version of Julian: part soldier, part schoolboy, and yet with everything I loved about him already inside.

  Had I ever come to terms with his beauty? Not really; it had only become entwined, in my mind, with the beauty of himself, with his quintessence. The Julian I loved. And I realized I couldn’t let him stay here, to be killed at the Somme or at Passchendaele or some meaningless night raid, like the one he was about to undertake. He had twelve certain years of life ahead, including one perfect summer; he’d done so much good with them. All those Southfield investors, all those endowments and retirements assured. Sterling Bates saved from bankruptcy, livelihoods made safe by the sheer force of his personality and his ingenuity and his example. A baby he’d conceived with me, who would live on after him, or rather before him; a baby I’d love with all the strength in my body, a baby I’d raise to worship the memory of its golden father.

  Any and all of those things far outweighed my own selfish need for a little more time with him, stolen from fate.

  At one point, well after midnight, he stirred, some part of his unconscious mind fumbling with the unfamiliarity of another body in the bed with him. He opened his eyes sleepily, a bit confused, terribly boyish, and looked across at my face on the pillow. “Kate,” he breathed.

  I reached out and placed my hand on his cheek, and I kissed him. I kissed him with every bit of that tenderness, that passion I felt for him, and then I made love to him. I had the advantage; I knew exactly what he loved, what made him cry out with pleasure. All those endless beautiful hours of practice, and I used them well. I brought him shuddering to completion, almost outside himself with the strength of his release, and then I held him to my breast, soaking him into my skin, whispering to him how eternally I desired him, adored him, loved him.

  So he wouldn’t need to hear it from me later. He’d know.

  When dawn broke, he awoke again, and this time he took me in his arms and possessed me with an exuberant male confidence—a man of the world already!—that made me smile, before I went mindless with anguished bliss, gripping the robust curve of his shoulders and marveling at him.

  No, I didn’t waste a moment. Not even an instant.

  He rose reluctantly, pressing kisses all over my body, in all those newly discovered places, murmuring words of wonder and love and gratitude. He washed and dressed in the numbing air; I helped him with the buttons, straightened his tie. Then I made myself ready while he went back to his own room to shave and gather his things. It didn’t take long, and when I was dressed I sat down and wrote a few lines on a piece of paper, though I knew it would make no difference, though I had no right even to try.

  When I finished, I slipped down the hall to his room and rapped on the worn wooden door. It opened at once.

  “Darling.” He tucked me into his arms, his cheek damp and sleek against my temple. “My train leaves in half an hour. Will you come to the station with me?”

  “Of course,” I said. I pressed my nose into his neck and inhaled deeply.

  “I’ll remember everything. I’ll change the time of the raid, and I’ll be careful. No wild risks. I’ll return to you, safe and whole. I won’t fail you, I promise.”

  “Of course you won’t, my love. Of course you won’t.”

  He sat us both down on the bed in a creak of old springs, turning me around so my back rested against his chest. “You must go back to England, where it’s safer. I’ll be due for a week’s leave in another month or two. We’ll be married then—legally, I mean; you’re already my wife—and you can live at Southfield with my parents. Our child will be born there. I’ll write straightaway and start preparing them. Darling, don’t be worried,” he said, kissing my hair. “You look so frightfully glum. You mustn’t. Everything will work out perfectly. I’ve someone to live for now. Two of you.” He let one hand slip downward.

  I covered his hand with mine. “I’m the luckiest woman in the world. To have found you. Your loving, open heart. You hardly know me, and you’ve taken me in, accepted every word I’ve told you. Given me this perfect night, when I thought I’d never hold you again.”

  He chuckled against me. “Darling, the honor was entirely mine.” His arm twisted; he checked his watch and sighed. “It’s time.”

  He took my hand and slung his pack over the other shoulder, and then he led me out the door and down the stairs and into the deserted street. The last of the rain had blown away in the night, and a clean new sun backlit the attic rooftops in palest gold. A few streets away, the cathedral bells tolled dolefully through the air, calling the faithful to matins, the same service at which I’d found Julian two days ago. His hand squeezed mine; he was thinking the same thing.

  “Only two days,” he said, “and I feel reborn.”

  “You’re insane,” I laughed. “You trusting fool. Of course I’m a complete imposter, trying to land you as my husband, trying to pass off this baby as yours. I mean, really. A time traveler. You’ll believe anything, won’t you?”

  “As long as it comes from your lips,” he said, laughing too.

  We made it to the station with a few minutes to spare. I spotted Geoff Warwick down at the other end of the platform, alone; he gazed at me with angry contempt and looked away. “That man,” I said, “just doesn’t like me.”

  “Don’t mind him. He’ll come around.”

  “No, he won’t.”

  “Now,” he said, firm and officerlike, turning to face me, the brim of his cap casting a diagonal shadow across his face. “First of all, no sadness. We’ll be together soon. I’ll write as often as I can. I’ll send something for you to live on as well, until everything’s all legal and proper and so on. What are your immediate plans?”

  “I suppose I’ll stay in Amiens a day or two, to make sure things went as planned. Could you send me a postcard or something, and let me know? Because I’ll worry.”

  “Of course. I’ll send one first thing. You’ll stay on at rue des Augustins?”

  “Yes. And then I suppose I’ll go back to England. As you suggested.”

  “Right-ho. Now, darling,” he said, drawing an envelope out of his notebook, “I must insist on your taking this, to help with your passage and doctors and whatnot. I haven’t anything larger at the moment, but I’ll write to my bankers…”

  “No! Please don’t. I’ve got all the money I need right now; you practically draped me with jewelry that last day. Look at this.” I eased the pearls halfway out of their pocket. The morning light caught the curves with a low gleam. “Your wedding gift.”

  “Good God!”

  “Yes, you’re very generous. Far too good to me.”

  “Oh, you married me for my money, did you?”

  “Of course. What else?”

  He pressed the envelope into my hands. “Take it anyway, darling. Please. For my own peace of mind, if nothing else.”

  “Julian, I can’t. Last night…”

  His face went pink. “Was my wedding night, as far as I’m concerned. And husbands and wives don’t keep accounts with one another.”

  A clean brisk snap inside me, nearly painless.

  “Take it.” He closed my hands around the envelope. “Please.”

  “All right,” I said reluctantly, “but only if you’ll take this.” I drew the folded paper out of my pocket.

  “What is it???
?

  “Just in case. In case it happens, after all.”

  He shook his head. “It won’t, Kate. I shan’t leave you.”

  “Please? Just humor me?”

  A steam whistle sounded, long and lonely, beckoning.

  “There’s me,” he said.

  “Please.” I reached forward to slip the note into his pocket.

  “Darling.” He smiled. “Very well, then. Write to me whenever you can. Let me know how you’re feeling, what you’re doing. I’ll be thinking of you, every moment. I shall fight like mad for the earliest possible leave.”

  I nodded. “I’ll write. Every day.” I could hear the engine now, loud and immense, pulling into the station. Its great black mass slid alongside us, hissing steam, filling our noses with the damp dirty smell of coal smoke.

  “And your direction, of course, so I can write back. Love letters, perhaps some rubbishy poetry if you’re exceptionally unlucky.”

  I nodded, not quite able to speak.

  He placed his hand under my chin, his other arm around my waist. “One more,” he said, and bent his head down to mine.

  “I love you, Julian Ashford. Just remember that, okay? It’s important.”

  He pressed his forehead against mine. “And I love you, Kate Ashford.”

  “No, you don’t. Not yet.”

  The train jerked to a stop with one last heave of steam, rousing the platform into motion: men getting on, men getting off, a swarm of uniforms through the drifting clouds. A few nurses here and there, blue skirts and white aprons and short capes.

  “You’re wrong,” he said. “I do love you.”

  “No, you don’t. But you will.”

  He grinned. “Well, that we can agree on. Good-bye, darling. Be safe. You’ll hear from me soon.”

  “Good-bye, my love. My own dear love.”

  He kissed my hand and let it go.

  “God bless you,” I whispered. He nodded, and stared at me hard, and then he wheeled around and pushed through the crowd to the train, without looking back. I searched the windows desperately as the cars began to pull away, but in the tangle of identical khaki arms and capped heads, he had become invisible.

  THE CRAMPING STARTED IN THE EVENING, and by morning I had lost the baby.

  Julian’s postcard never arrived.

  28.

  A week later, I stood at the quayside in Le Havre, surrounded by more khaki soldiers and more blue-and-white nurses and the salty-wet smell of a busy harbor. The whole world seemed to be in one uniform or another.

  I wasn’t quite sure how I’d managed to get there; the past few days had passed in a nightmare blur. Somehow I had existed, had put food into my mouth, had dressed and breathed and even slept a few meager hours.

  Had found my note to Julian, tucked back inside the pocket of my jacket by his confident fingers, probably while he was distracting me with that last kiss.

  Had gone to the steamship offices, a full four days after Julian left—just to be sure, just to be absolutely positive he was gone—and booked a second-class berth to New York City, knowing I couldn’t stay in France, knowing I couldn’t go to Julian’s family, knowing that America was my home, whatever century it was.

  Had dropped off a letter at the post office, which I’d written during the journey to Le Havre, laboring over each word, not certain I should write it at all:

  Please don’t grieve for Julian. He has been delivered from this horror to a different time and place, alive and well, where he has grown into every early promise, as fine and honorable a man as ever walked this earth; where his only sadness is the knowledge of your own sorrow; where, above all, he is loved, as no man ever was, by

  Kate Ashford

  I’d addressed the envelope to Viscountess Chesterton, Southfield, England.

  I’d spent a day wondering, quite objectively, whether I should just kill myself. I mean, here I was, stranded in the middle of the First World War, with nothing but Spanish flu, hyperinflation, and Hitler to look forward to. What was the point in existing, if Julian was gone, if our baby was gone? If everything and everyone I knew and loved didn’t even exist yet? Oh, there was a chance that Hollander might, out of kindness, try to bring me back, but Julian didn’t exist in that world either. I’d be his widow, the tragic Mrs. Laurence, surrounded by physical reminders of him and dying inch by inch. Turning into some reclusive cat lady in my Manhattan townhouse.

  Anything but that.

  But Julian would have been furious if I’d killed myself. That was just the kind of self-indulgent Hamilton-like behavior he scorned most, exactly the opposite of what he’d loved about me. He hadn’t thrown himself in the river. He’d gotten on with life. Of course, he knew he’d meet me eventually, but the prospect would have seemed dim and distant in those early years.

  So I’d go on existing. I’d try to find a way to be useful, to turn my knowledge into good. Maybe I could spend the twenties on Wall Street, amassing a fortune, and then use it in some sort of relief work during the Depression and the next war. Something to keep my brain busy. Something to live for. Something to make amends for having abandoned Julian’s broken body on a fool’s errand, for leaving only Hollander and Andrew Paulson to lay him to rest, to keep his vigil.

  Right now everything was numb, and for that I was grateful. It was as though I’d grown a thick mucous membrane around myself, so the pain only stung on the surface, not quite penetrating all the layers. No. More. Julian. Not even our baby. The thought still bounced off. Not denial, exactly; my brain recognized what had happened. The information just hadn’t sunk down to the silent void at my center.

  Even now, I didn’t really feel of this world. I simply sat, watching the roiling dockyard scene from the peace of a wooden bench, waiting for eleven o’clock to toll out from the clock tower, signaling it was time to board the Cunard Columbia and get myself back home to America. I’d flown over the Atlantic by private jet, and now I was returning aboard a small old liner belonging to the previous century, only brought out of mothballs because of the exigencies of wartime. Fitting. But she was a pretty ship, at least. Painted gray for camouflage, but with a hint of winsomeness about her. She’d held the record for fastest crossing in her day, the man in the Cunard office had said proudly. For about a week, anyway, until some German liner took back the honor. I could get my Titanic on, do the Kate Winslet thing in the bow some evening after dinner. Try to get myself to feel something other than this alarming numbness.

  “Hello, miss?”

  The voice cracked against my ears, making me jump.

  “Hello, miss? English miss?” It was a little boy, skinny and barefoot, maybe eight years old, looking up at me with a hungry hopeful expression. Was it so terribly obvious I wasn’t French? “I take your suitcase, yes? Only ten centimes, miss.”

  “Oui, merci. I’m traveling on the Columbia. Do you know it?”

  “Oui, of course, miss. You follow me, yes?”

  The clock tower began sounding out eleven o’clock, and I stood up and handed my tiny suitcase to the boy. I had only a pair of pajamas and a change of clothes, and the pretty dress I’d bought for my last evening with Julian, together with a few odd toiletries I’d found to fill the needs once met by Neutrogena. Not much to build a new life.

  The boy slipped his hand into mine and began leading me toward the ship, a couple of hundred yards away. A troop ship had just arrived and disembarked its passengers, and they marched now in loose formation down the pier, singing robust cheerful songs, an endless khaki stream of them, bristling with packs and rifles and helmets. I’d been so focused on Julian, on preserving him somehow, I hadn’t had time to appreciate that either: the fact that I was in 1916, watching history unfold.

  All these men, these nurses, these townspeople—they were fighting a war. Maybe I should stay, I thought suddenly. Maybe I should join the Red Cross, or some other volunteer organization. Drive ambulances, like Hemingway, or nurse. I could help.

  I stopped about fifty
yards from the second-class gangplank, where a crowd was beginning to gather in order to board. Women, mostly, some with children. One beautiful boy with flaxen curls, scampering just out of his mother’s reach, exactly as I’d always pictured Julian at that age. A few men in civilian clothes, their plain suits almost exotic in the militarized landscape; the only males I’d seen out of uniform for the past two weeks were those conspicuously incapable of war service. So these must be Americans, I realized, returning to New York. The United States wouldn’t enter the war for another year.

  The little boy turned to me. “Why do we stop, miss?”

  “Let me think a moment.” I reached up to press my temple. Maybe I should stay. Maybe I could be more useful here, at the moment. Certainly busier. I knew a little French; I could learn more.

  The little boy tugged at my arm. “Come, miss. They go in the ship. You miss the ship.”

  “No. Wait. Attendez, s’il vous plaît.” I stood there, watching the shifting crowd, the laughing, talking throng of passengers a hundred feet away, inching up the gangway to the ship. America or France? New York or Paris? I couldn’t decide. I felt as though I were being ripped apart. A ship’s horn sounded in my ears, going on and on, and the little boy stared up at me in wonder, and then the air emptied out of my ears, and I was tumbling through the freezing void again, and then nothing.

  COOL AIR, DAMP AND BRINY, brushed my nose; something warm and solid surrounded me. I tried to open my eyes, but my lids felt heavy, lazy, and I gave up.

  A voice murmured lovingly in my ear. “I thought I told you to go home and wait for me.”

  “I couldn’t,” I whispered back, through cold immobile lips. “I couldn’t just wait for you. What if you needed me?”

  “So you came running to my rescue,” the voice said, infinitely tender, “and I nearly lost you forever.” The warm mass moved beneath me, and I heard, more brusquely, away from my ear, “She’s coming around, thank God. Is the car ready?”

  Some distant words shifted by; I couldn’t quite pick them out. “No, on to Paris, I think,” the voice continued, deep and rich under my ear. “I think she’s well enough. Have Allegra inform the hotel. We should be there in two hours.” Then it bent toward me again. “Can you move yet, darling? The car’s waiting.”