Somewhere in Time (25 page)

I was halfway through the parlor compartment when I wondered if she wanted me to remain out of sight. The conjecture ended quickly. If Robinson had been watching us, it would only make it worse if I hid. Anyway-I felt myself bristle-who was he to force me to hide? I stepped forward again and was close behind Elise when she opened the door.

Robinson's face was a mask of such intense hostility that I felt a bolt of fear. If he had a revolver in the pocket of his suit coat, I was finished. A headline flashed across my mind:

MANAGER OF FAMOUS ACTRESS SHOOTS MAN. Or Would it be SHOOTS LOVER?

"I think you had better go and rest," he told Elise in a low, trembling voice.

"Have you been following me?" she demanded.

"This is scarcely a time for discussion," he responded tightly.

"I am engaged to you as an actress, not a doormat, Mr. Robinson," she said, with such an autocratic tone that, had it been addressed to me, I would have wilted. "Do not attempt to wipe your boots on me." There it was, in full force: the background she'd explained to me so patiently and, now, assailed him with so vitriolically.

Robinson seemed to pale at her words-if it was possible for him to be any paler than he was already. Without a word, he turned and descended the steps of the rear platform. Elise went outside and I followed. I stood watching her lock the door for several moments before it came to me that a gentleman would have locked it for her. By then it was too late; she was descending the steps ahead of me. Robinson held up his hand but she ignored him, features hardened with resentment.

As I reached the ground, Robinson looked at me so venomously that I almost drew back. "Mr. Robinson," I started. "Leave off, sir," he interrupted in a rumbling voice, "or I shall have a shy at you." I didn't know what he was saying exactly but sensed that it was in the area of physical violence.

Robinson looked at Elise and extended his arm. Dear Lord, the look she gave him. A goddess in unearthly rage could not have exceeded it. "Mr. Collier will escort me," she said.

I think I could have bounced a ball off Robinson's cheeks, they became so rigid. His eyes, somewhat bulbous already, threatened to erupt from their sockets. I have never seen a man so angry in my life. I felt both arms begin to tighten, hands fisting automatically as I prepared to defend myself. If it had not been for his unquestioning respect for Elise, I'm sure there 'would have been a bloody skirmish.

As it was, he turned abruptly on his heel and started toward the hotel with long, furious strides. I didn't raise my arm for Elise but took hold of hers instead, feeling how it trembled as we walked away from the railway car. I knew she didn't want to talk so I kept silent, holding her arm in a firm grip and matching her disturbed pace, stride for stride, glancing occasionally at the stiffened whiteness of her face.

No word was spoken until we reached the door of her room. There, she turned and looked at me, attempting to smile but managing only a faint grimace.

"I'm sorry about what happened, Elise," I said.

"You have nothing to be sorry about," she answered. "This is Robinson's doing. He is playing it low-down now." She actually bared her teeth, giving me a momentary- and, I admit, startling-impression of a tigress lurking underneath her carefully restrained exterior. "Of all the cheek," she muttered. "I will not be ordered about by him."

"He does have rather a kingly manner," I said, attempting to lighten the moment.

She would not accept the attempt but made a scoffing sound. "It would take an epidemic to make him a king."

I couldn't help but smile at her remark. Seeing it, she tightened, thinking for a moment, I suppose, that I was laughing at her, then realizing why I smiled, managing a smile herself, though one devoid of humor. "I have always been his most malleable-and most remunerative-of stars," she said. "He has no reason whatsoever to behave toward me like this. As though we were wed by marriage contract rather than business." Again, the scoffing sound. "People have actually thought we are secretly married," she added. "He has never sought to dissuade them."

I took both of her hands in mine and held them gently, smiling at her. She tried, I could see, to control her anger but, obviously, what Robinson had done had struck too deeply and her anger would not be dismissed. "Well, he is wrong," she said. "If he thinks this scandalous and tawdry, that is his lack. It is my heart, my life." She drew in shuddering breath. "Kiss me once and let me go," she said.

It may have been a request but it sounded more like a demand. I did not argue with it. Leaning over, I touched my lips to hers. She did not respond in any way and I wondered if her telling me to kiss her was, in her mind, more a personal defiance of Robinson than a desire for my kiss.

Then, as though by magic, she was gone and I was staring at her closed door, thinking that nothing had been said about our seeing each other again. Did that mean she didn't intend to see me anymore? I could not believe that, in light of what had happened in the railway car. Still, my confidence was not exactly at a crest either.

With a sigh, I turned and walked from the public sitting room onto the Open Court. Crossing to the outside stairs, I trudged up to the third floor and my room. Unlocking the door, I went inside, removed my coat and boots, and lay down on the bed. Stretching out, I realized how tired I was. Thank God there hadn't been a fight, I thought. Robinson would have killed me.

The entire experience with him had drained me. How fiercely he protects her. Obviously the man's feeling for her far exceeds the regard of manager for client. I can hardly blame him for that.

I tried to think of a way by which to see her again. Clearly, she had to rest now but what about later? Had any arrangement been made for me to see the play? It might not have. The thought of showing up at the Ballroom door and being turned away made me cringe. Yet it could occur.

I tried to recall the entire scene which had taken place in her railway car but only one thing kept repeating in my mind: her murmuring to me, weakly and defeatedly, "More fallen." I heard her say it again and again, each time tingling with the memory. She loved me. I had reached Elise McKenna and she loved me.

� � �

When I woke up, it was dark. Instantly, I felt alarm and looked around. Seeing nothing that could help me place myself, I sat up quickly, trying to remember where the light switch was. I couldn't recall having seen it but knew it had to be near the door and, standing, lumbered in that direction. I felt around the wall with clumsy movements until my fingers touched the switch.

The flare of light evoked a sigh of deep relief from me; I was still in 1896. The sigh led to a smile of confidence. I had, now, slept four times without losing hold, four times without waking to a headache.

My next alarm was that I'd overslept; that, already, the play was being performed. While less of an anxiety than the previous one, it was enough to dismay me and I wondered how to find out what time it was. Phone the desk, my mind suggested. Immediately, I reprimanded it -with a scowl. Would it never catch on?

I opened the door quickly. As I did, I saw two small envelopes lying on the carpet, one white, one pale yellow. I picked them up and looked at the handwriting on them. Both were very neat and orderly but, on the butter-colored envelope, there was a seal of pale green wax, the delicate figure of a rose imprinted on it. The sight of it was so evocative of the charm of this period, as well as moving to me because I knew it had to be from her, that I stood there smiling at it like a happy schoolboy.

I wanted to read it instantly but first had to find out what time it was. Stepping out into the corridor, I looked in both directions. Not a soul in sight. That panicked me, making me believe that everyone was at the play. I started hurrying along the corridor and went outside onto the balcony.

The Open Court was once again a fairyland of colored lights. Shivering at the chill of the night air as it pierced my shirt, my eyes searched the Court, finally catching sight of a man walking across it. I called down to him and, at my second call, he stopped and looked up in surprise.

I must have made a startling vision standing in my shirtsleeves, two letters clutched in my hand, my hair sticking up in clumps from where I'd slept on it. He made no mention of my disarray, however, as I asked him for the time but, slipping his watch from its vest pocket, released its cover and informed me that it was thirteen minutes and twenty-two seconds after six o'clock; highly precise fellow, he.

Thanking him profusely, I returned to my room. There was plenty of time to wash up, dine, and get to the play. Shutting the door, I sat on the bed and opened the white envelope first, wanting to save Elise's for last.

Inside the envelope was a white card about four by five inches in size on which were printed the words: The management of the Hotel del Coronado requests the pleasure of your presence on (the following written by hand) Friday, November 20, 1896, at 8:30p.m. Added below were the handwritten words: In the Ballroom-The Little Minister-starring Miss Elise McKenna. I smiled at it gratefully. She'd seen to the arrangement.

Hastily, I opened the other envelope, trying not to break die seal but unable to avoid it. It was from her; and I confess to being flabbergasted at the quality of her penmanship. Where did she learn to write so beautifully? My scrawl will be an insult to her eyes.

Too, her written words are so much more effusive-and certain-than they were when she spoke to me. Is it absence from my presence that permits this freedom of expression? Perhaps, in 1896, letters are the only medium through which women can express emotion.

Richard [she wrote], Please forgive the "gone to bad" envelope. [It was a little wrinkled, I forgot to mention.] It is the only one I have. Which tells you how often I write to men.

Forgive me if emotion and expression are simultaneous in this note. Ever since we met on the beach, I have been living in a kind of folie lucide, each sense heightened, everything I see strangely defined-every sound sharp and distinct, every sight vivid to my eyes. In brief, since meeting you, I feel things more.

Was I very pale when I looked at you after we had first come into the hotel last night? I feel that I must have been. It seemed as though I had no blood in my veins. I felt weak and most unreal-as, I am sure you know, I felt this afternoon when we were in my car.

I confess to you that, despite this intensified sense of perception which your arrival in my life brought forth, I thought you, at first, to be no more than a very capable and clever fortune hunter-forgive me for saying it! I only do so because I want you to know everything. God save my suspicious nature, I even suspected Marie (my wardrobe mistress, you remember) of working some arrangement with you to gull me. I apologize a hundred times for that. I would not even tell you but I must be honest.

When we were together this afternoon, I felt such happiness flooding through me, my emotions fairly drowned in it. I have the feeling still as I sit in my room, writing to you-though the waves, thank Heaven, have quieted to a constant, flowing stream.

Despite my pendulumlike behavior on our walk, you must know that I enjoyed it. No, that is too mild a word. You must know that I was moved. So much so that to be away from you has filled me with a sadness which conflicts with my aforesaid flow of happiness. How confused my emotions are this afternoon.

I keep thinking of my faults. From one extreme of looking (in vain, I admit) for faults in you, I, now, can only see my own. I feel I ought to be much better than I am to deserve your devotion.

Richard, I have never been romantically involved before. I told you so and want to repeat it in writing. There has never been anyone-and I am glad, so glad. I never truly believed-despite childlike dreams-that any man could make me feel this way. Well, dear Mr. Collier, I am beginning to see the error of my ways.

Women like myself, who are constitutionally incapable of being devoted to more than one man in a lifetime, are either the happiest of women or the most miserable. I am both at once. That you love me and that I feel emotion for you building in me constantly imparts the happiness.

My dark imaginings inflict the misery.

Even now, I feel the strangeness of our coming together; even now, wonder, to the depth of me, where you came from. No, I promise not to ask you. When you're ready, you will tell me-and, of course, it matters less than that you're here. From this day forth, I am a true believer in miracles.

From this day forth, as well, I feel that my emotions are released. Yet how complex they are. One moment, I yearn to tell the world at large about my every feeling. The next, I want to guard them jealously and keep them to myself. I hope I do not drive you mad. I will try to be consistent, no longer oscillating like some planet that has lost its way. For, at long last, I have found my sun.

I must leave off now to settle down and have my fever quietly-make final preparations for the performance, then attempt to get a little rest. I have requested that an invitation be delivered to you. If it is not, please ask at the desk. I have instructed them to set aside a front-row seat for you-a mistake, I'm sure. If I catch a single sight of you, I shall, beyond all doubt, forget every line and movement in the play.

Well, the risk must be endured. I want you there as close to me as possible.

That dreadful man broke in upon us just as I was about to speak the words I never thought I'd say to any man within my lifetime. I write them now. Hold me to them always for they will always be true.

I love you.

Elise

Consider the sight of one love-dazed man sitting on his bed, oblivious to everything as he rereads that letter, then rereads it again, then again and then again-until he sits with tears in his eyes, so overwhelmed by joy that only one phrase comes to him. Thank God for her.

� � �

It was six forty-five as I entered the Rotunda and headed for the Crown Room. Up on the second-floor balcony, the string orchestra was playing some kind of march and I felt so good I almost strutted to the rhythm of it. I smiled with delight at what I saw across the lobby-the unexpected sight of An Hour's Catch (so read the sign) of fish caught while Trolling in Deep Water. It is odd, to say the least, to see enormous fish hanging in the lobby of a grand hotel like this.