The Time Travelers, Volume 2 (16 page)

Mom fell for it. Tod thought maybe along with his career in designer water he would become a con artist, because if you could con your own mother in a crunch, you had skill.

Devonny was eager. She would see New York City a hundred years later! She would see if they really did have telephones. She would see what it was like to be a Self-Made Woman.

And she would see if on the right street at the right moment, she could mesh with Time and step back through.

Devonny had a parasol to match every dress. She
had petticoats of satin and lace and taffeta. She had white gloves to the elbow, a new pair once a week. She had miles of lace, ruffles and flouncing.

Devonny sorted through Annie’s wardrobe to find something sufficiently dressy for town, but if there was any such thing, Annie had taken it with her to Norway. Annie’s wardrobe consisted of dull dark colors in heavy hard materials, like the overalls of workmen.

Finally Devonny located a long flowered skirt and a blouse so large that nothing was revealed of her actual body, although it did not make her pretty, either. It was just cloth, and it was there.

“Perfect,” enthused Mrs. Lockwood. “Now, I take the seven-oh-two train, so I will set the alarm for five-thirty.”

In the morning? Yes, servants and cooks and tenders of heating systems got up at such an hour, but
people
didn’t! “That will be fine,” said Devonny, uttering one of her hugest lies.

And at five-thirty in the morning, they leaped from bed, showered, dressed, gulped coffee, rushed to the car, drove to the station, bought a ticket that cost as much as a week’s rent, and finally sat crushed together on a rickety excuse for a train where nobody talked or had any fun but read a morning newspaper.

Devonny was thrilled to read the paper. Her stepmother Florinda was not permitted to read the paper,
lest politics and threat of war upset her delicate balance.

They arrived at Grand Central Station (surely it had been much more grand?), took the subway, popped up out of the ground and walked several blocks to Mrs. Lockwood’s office.

The buildings were so tall that Devonny could not think of it. What made them stand up? What if they fell? What if all that glass hit the pavement? How did you climb that many stairs?

But the streets were so clean—no horse droppings—and the cars so obedient to traffic fixtures. It was wonderful, how these people who did not know how to eat knew how to be kind in traffic.

The women had no sense of fashion. Black was the color of choice, or ivory or olive green. Was the nation in mourning? To Devonny’s eye, they were dressing like men. She could not understand this. There were so few advantages to being a woman. Surely magnificent clothing was one, and these women had money of their own, which was most rare, but they were not spending it on clothing. Or if they were, they were making poor choices.

Not a single individual wore white gloves. Devonny could not imagine occupying an urban world and touching it. Why, you would have to wash your hands constantly!

Neither men nor women wore hats. Devonny never left a portion of her body undecorated. Indeed, these people had abandoned the most delightful frothy clothing of all! The only hats to be seen were worn by the more frightening young men on the street, whose skulls were covered by gaudy knit caps.

Mrs. Lockwood’s work took place on the phone and on her computer screen. Devonny could not entirely figure out what she was doing, but it was terribly exciting to Mrs. Lockwood, who forgot Devonny, and shouted into the phone, and took notes, and bit pencils, and handled two telephone calls at once while typing madly at her keyboard and staring at the results on the screen. Devonny was quite out of breath considering it all.

At two o’clock Mrs. Lockwood remembered lunch, opened her briefcase, handed Devonny a sandwich (hard and dry), a tiny round cake wrapped in clear slick paper, and a little box of grapes, so hard to open that the gentleman at the next computer had to break into it for Devonny, and then she spilled it everywhere because the box contained grape juice instead of grapes. How on earth did you keep liquid in a box?

Mrs. Lockwood flung her apparatus down. “Isn’t this wonderful, Devonny? I love what I do. I love work. Can you imagine a life with nothing to do except get ready for a party?”

“Shocking,” said Devonny, who had done it successfully for years.

Nobody seemed normal here, especially the females. A female must not be curious, assertive or different. She must not want adventure. Even to dream of being like the few brave women in the world (Ida Tarbell the muckraker, Florence Nightingale going to war, Jane Addams starting Hull House) was wrong. Difference in a woman would involve unseemly activities among men.

But all these women were among men, and nobody noticed, especially the men.

Mrs. Lockwood’s new assistant was a young woman named Lindsay, who had just had a baby. “Oh, lovely,” said Devonny, feeling on solid ground here. “Tell me about your baby.”

“It’s a girl,” Lindsay said. “David had his heart set on a boy. So I’m going to get pregnant again right away.”

Devonny looked out the window at a skyline that was so very different, listening to a sentence so very familiar. “Do you feel the same?”

“Well, of course I’m delighted with Ashley, she’s so precious, and I wouldn’t trade her for anything, but I do want a boy. So we’ll keep trying.”

Even in Annie’s time, thought Devonny, having a girl means try again. Get it right.

Mr. Stratton requested the honor of Lord Winden’s presence at his town house for a discussion of the choices now available to them.

Sitting frozen and terrified in the parlor was the first Mrs. Stratton.

Hugh-David bowed. “Madam,” he said, “how you must be suffering with anxiety, even as I am.”

“Her suffering,” said Hiram Stratton, “is nothing compared to what it will be.”

Hugh-David raised his eyebrows.

“Aurelia, tell the man what you have done.”

Hugh-David moved closer to her, for if he could not be the hero that Flossie expected, at least he could be encouraging to Devonny’s mother.

Mrs. Stratton was trying not to sob. “First, sir,” she said to Hugh-David, “I shall tell you what Mr. Stratton has done. Perhaps you heard mention of our very dear son, Strat.”

“Aurelia!” said Mr. Stratton dangerously.

“I shall tell him all of it or none of it,” said Aurelia.

Mr. Stratton shrugged.

Hugh-David felt chilled. Surely this man never shrugged about anything, ever, in this world.

“My husband was very angry with Strat a few years ago because Strat had fallen in love and was full of silly stories about a girl named Annie. She was some sort of tramp and disappeared one day. Strat was deeply upset and said all manner of ridiculous
things and argued strenuously with his father and with various household guests. He behaved badly. Arguments escalated. Soon anger between them had reached a fever pitch, and my husband felt he was no longer in control of his child. He took his revenge by pretending Strat was insane.”

Hiram Stratton looked amused. He locked his fingers together on his large distended waist and rocked on his heels, contemplating the ceiling.

“He had our son locked up in an asylum to teach him a lesson. The lesson was: Never argue with your parent. Obey. Do not talk back. But Strat managed to escape, and there was a terrible accident, and my darling boy, my sweet and lovely son, was killed.”

Hugh-David found himself kneeling, holding her cold hand between his. A father so harsh that he pretended the family blood was ruined in order to make a point? No wonder the poor woman’s face was lined with sorrow.

Would Devonny ever have told Hugh-David where and how Strat had died? Would they have reached such a point of trust?

A line of sorrow formed on his own, much younger, face. For he had made it clear to his bride that she was not to waste time trusting him; she was simply a conduit for the money he needed.

“Have no respect for me, sir,” said Mrs. Stratton
quietly. “Divorced and unnecessary in life, I was desperately lonely. I was not permitted to visit my children. My allowance was so small I could scarcely afford to leave the house, let alone attend the symphony or the opera. I could not afford the fashions necessary to pay visits or reply to invitations. Eventually, there were no friends and no invitations. My life was dark and cold.”

He, too, hated dark cold corners, and stayed at his club, or traveled, or invited houseguests in order to warm himself by their conversation.

“So I arrived at a decision,” said the mother of Devonny and Strat. “I would blackmail Hiram. In that letter, I would write that if his son had tainted blood, so did his daughter. Were this dread fact to be made public, no man would marry that daughter, lest the children of the marriage also be insane. Hiram believed the threat,” she said, sounding proud of herself for writing such an effective letter. “He seized upon you, Lord Winden. He flung that wedding together in days. His scheme was to put you two on a ship and get you out of the country before this hideous truth became known. While you were getting Devonny with child, he would track down and destroy the blackmailer.”

Hugh-David had thought himself sophisticated; he had thought little would shock him. He was shocked.
His own mother, who would manipulate anybody anywhere for any end, might have stopped before doing what Aurelia Stratton had done.

She rushed on with her wicked tale. “I was sure he would never find me out. I was sure that Devonny, given control of her fortune, would bring me to England, and I would be part of the new family! And I would have parties and fashions and friends and joy and music once more!”

Hiram sent the wrong one to the insane asylum, thought Hugh-David. She is insane from poverty. Insane from the loss of her son. “It worked well, Mrs. Stratton. But where is Devonny now? Did you arrange this also?”

The little woman gave him a strange clear look, past grief and fear, as if she had abandoned both her hope and her body.

His anxiety grew huge. It seemed to fill the room, like some noxious air. What had the woman done? What had they all done—he and the father and the mother—in their greed and selfishness?

“I know nothing of what has happened to Devonny,” she said. “This has ruined me. My carefully laid plans—someone has destroyed them.”

She did not care what had happened to Devonny. She was concerned with her ruined plans.

Oh, Devonny! he thought. No one knows where
you are. No friend, and no foe. I too have been an instrument in your suffering. Nor have I accomplished a thing. What park or room or alley am I to search? How to storm the city? Where is the mysterious letter, from which I could divine what cellar or garrett holds you prisoner?

But the days had passed. A kidnapper who did not care about a diamond necklace was not going to write in for a ransom. Hugh-David thought of Aurelia’s dark insanity, Hiram’s cruel fatherhood, Strat’s lonely death, Devonny’s unknown fate.

My mother will soon arrive, he thought, and will terrify everybody in sight. Including me.

He remembered telling Devonny she would be fine in England as long as she submitted to everything her mother-in-law said. But nobody was really fine around Hugh-David’s mother; in fact, most people related to this woman spent their lives trying to avoid her.

I was going to use my wife to stand between me and my mother, he thought. Use Devonny to soak up my mother’s temper and demands and thoughtlessness.

The tally of the ways in which he had planned to abandon Devonny was mounting. His opinion of himself slipped downward in proportion.

He left the splendid building that housed the failed
Stratton family, wishing that something as simple as joining the French Foreign Legion would save Devonny. But that was in books. In life, in the city, on the street, he did not know how to find her.

Nobody came to claim the necklace.

Except his mother.

EIGHT
 

M
rs. Lockwood came to soccer practice the following Saturday.

It wasn’t half so much fun with her there. How could Tod be a big important strong coach when his own mother was pacing around and making suggestions, which in her case were mainly orders? He was just a teenager doing an assigned chore.