There was a long moment during which only the sound of her sobbing could be heard, and then Terence turned to me and said, “Do you realize what this means?”
“Oh, Terence, you poor, poor boy!” Mrs. Mering sobbed. “And you would have had five thousand pounds a year!” and allowed herself to be led weeping from the room by Colonel Mering.
We watched them climb the stairs. Halfway up, Mrs. Mering swayed in her husband’s arms. “We shall have to hire a new butler!” she said despairingly. “Where shall I ever find a new butler? I blame you entirely for this, Mesiel. If you had let me hire English servants instead of Irish—” She broke down, weeping.
Colonel Mering handed her his handkerchief. “There, there, my dear,” he said, “don’t take on so.”
As soon as they were out of sight, Terence said, “Do you Realize What This Means? I’m not engaged. I’m free to marry Maud. ‘Oh, frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!’ ”
Cyril clearly Realized What It Meant. He sat up alertly and began to wag his entire body.
“You do know, don’t you, old fellow?” Terence said. “No more sleeping in the stable for you.”
And no more baby talk, I thought. No more putting up with Princess Arjumand.
“It’s the soft life for you from now on,” Terence said. “Sleeping in the house and riding on trains and all the butcher’s bones you like! Maud adores bulldogs!”
Cyril smiled a wide, drooling smile of pure happiness.
“I must go up to Oxford immediately. When’s the next train? Pity Baine’s not here. He’d know.” He leaped up the stairs. At the top, he leaned down over the railing and said, “You do think she’ll forgive me, don’t you?”
“For being engaged to the wrong girl?” I said. “A minor infraction. Happens all the time. Look at Romeo. He’d been in love with some Rosalind person. It never seemed to bother Juliet.”
“ ‘Did my heart love till now?’ ” he quoted, extending his hand dramatically down toward Verity. “ ‘Forswear it, sight! For I ne’er saw true beauty till this night.’ ” He disappeared down the upstairs corridor.
I looked at Verity. She stood with her hands on the newel post and was gazing sadly after Terence.
By tomorrow she’ll be back in the 1930s, I thought, Realizing What It Meant. She would be back to documenting the Depression and reading mystery novels, her beautiful red hair in a pageboy, and her long legs, which I had never seen, encased in silk stockings with a seam down the back. And I would never see her again.
No, I would probably see her at the consecration. If I were still allowed to come. If Lady Schrapnell didn’t permanently assign me to jumble sale duty when I told her that the bishop’s bird stump hadn’t been in the cathedral.
And if I did see Verity at the consecration, what exactly was I supposed to say to her? All Terence had to apologize for was thinking he’d been in love. I had to apologize for being such a liability in the scheme of things that I’d had to be shut up in a dungeon during the denouement. Not exactly something to be proud of. It was just as well I’d be stuck behind the fancy goods stall.
“I’m going to miss all this,” Verity said, her eyes still on the stairs. “I should be glad it’s all worked out so well, and that the continuum’s not going to collapse…” She turned her beautiful naiad’s eyes on me. “You do think the incongruity’s repaired, don’t you?”
“There’s a train at 9:43,” Terence said, racketing down the stairs with a valise in one hand and his hat in the other. “Baine thoughtfully left a Bradshaw in my room. Arrives at 11:02. Come along, Cyril, we’re going to go get engaged. Where’s he got to? Cyril!” He disappeared into the parlor.
“Yes,” I said to Verity. “Completely repaired.”
“Ned, you can arrange to have the boat sent back to Jabez, can’t you?” Terence said, reappearing with Cyril. “And the rest of my things sent to Oxford?”
“Yes,” I said. “Go.”
He pumped my hand. “Goodbye. ‘Friend, ahoy! Farewell, farewell!’ I’ll see you next term.”
“I… I’m not certain about that,” I said, and realized how much I was going to miss him. “Goodbye, Cyril.” I leaned down to pat him on the head.
“Nonsense. You’re looking much better since we’ve been at Muchings End. You’ll be entirely cured by Michaelmas term. We’ll have such jolly times on the river,” Terence said, and was gone, Cyril trotting happily after him.
“I want them out of this house immediately,” Mrs. Mering’s voice said, overwrought, and we both looked up the stairs.
A door slammed overhead. “Absolutely out of the question!” Mrs. Mering said, and then the low sound of voices murmuring. “…and tell them…”
More murmuring. “I want you to go downstairs immediately and tell them. This is all due to them!”
More murmuring, and then, “If she’d been a proper chaperone this would never ha—”
A door shutting cut her off, and a minute later Colonel Mering came down the stairs, looking extremely embarrassed.
“All been too much for my poor dear wife,” he said, looking at the carpet. “Her nerves. Very delicate. Rest and absolute quiet is what she needs. Think it best you go to your aunt in London, Verity, and you back to—” He looked at a loss.
“To Oxford,” I said.
“Ah, yes, to your studies. Sorry about this,” Colonel Mering said to the carpet. “Glad to arrange for the carriage.”
“No, that’s all right,” I said.
“No trouble,” he said. “Will have Baine tell—” he stopped, looking lost.
“I’ll see that Miss Brown gets to the station,” I said.
He nodded. “Must go see to my dear wife,” he said, and started up the stairs.
Verity went after him. “Colonel Mering,” she said, following him halfway up the stairs. “I don’t think you should disown your daughter.”
He looked embarrassed. “Afraid Malvinia’s quite determined. Dreadful shock, you know. Butler and all that.”
“Baine — I mean, Mr. Callahan — did prevent Tossie’s cat from eating your Black Moor,” she said.
Wrong thing to say. “He didn’t prevent it from eating my globe-eyed nacreous ryunkin,” he said angrily. “Cost two hundred pounds.”
“But he did take Princess Arjumand with him so she can’t eat any more of your goldfish,” she said persuasively, “and he prevented Madame Iritosky from stealing Aunt Malvinia’s ruby necklace. And he’s read Gibbon.” She put her hands on the newel post and looked up at him. “And she is your only daughter.”
Colonel Mering looked down at me for support. “What do you think, Henry? Will this butler fellow make her a good husband?”
“He has her best interests at heart,” I said firmly.
The Colonel shook his head. “Afraid my wife is quite determined never to speak to her again. Said from this moment forth, Tossie is dead to her.” He went sadly up the stairs.
“But she’s a spiritist,” Verity said, pursuing him. “She is quite capable of speaking to the dead.”
His face lit up. “Capital idea! Could have a séance.” He went happily up the stairs. “Loves séances. Could rap out, ‘Forgive.’ Bound to work. Never thought all that medium poppycock would be of any use.”
He rapped loudly three times on the banister. “Capital idea!”
He started down the corridor and then stopped and put his hand on Verity’s arm. “Should pack and depart for the station as soon as possible. Your own best interests at heart. Nerves, you know.”
“I quite understand,” Verity said and opened the door to her room. “Mr. Henry and I shall be gone directly.” She shut her door behind her.
Colonel Mering disappeared down the corridor. A door opened and shut, but not before Mrs. Mering’s voice had boomed out like the Red Queen’s, “…gone yet? I thought I told you—”
Time to depart.
I went upstairs and into my room. I opened the wardrobe and got out my carpetbag. I set it on the bed and then sat down beside it and thought about what had just happened. The continuum had somehow managed to correct the incongruity, pairing off lovers like the last act of a Shakespearean comedy, though just how it had managed it wasn’t clear. What was clear was that it had wanted us out of the way while it was doing whatever it was doing. So it had done the time-travel equivalent of locking us in our rooms.