“An excellent book,” he said. “The Decline and Fall.”
“Edifying and instructive,” I said, and went up to bed.
“And kiss me, Kate! We will be married a Sunday.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
I felt better in the morning. When I came down with Cyril at six, the rain had stopped, the sky was blue, and the wet grass glittered like diamonds.
And time travel is inherently hopeful. Failing to fix it once, you get innumerable other chances, or at least somebody does, and a week from now, or a year, when the forensics expert finally managed to decipher the diary, Carruthers or Warder or some addled new recruit could come back on the fifteenth and see to it that Mr. C made his entrance on cue.
We hadn’t succeeded, but at this very moment they might have solved the Mystery of Waterloo and self-correction. At this very moment T.J. and Mr. Dunworthy might be sending someone through to intercept me on my way to Oxford’s railway station and keep me from meeting Terence and mucking up his love life. Or to separate Professor Peddick and Professor Overforce. Or to stop Verity from wading into the Thames and rescuing Princess Arjumand in the first place. Or to send me to World War I to recover from my time-lag.
The cat would swim to shore, Terence would meet Maud, and the Luftwaffe would bomb London. And I would never meet Verity. Small price to pay for saving the universe. Well worth the sacrifice.
And I wouldn’t feel any loss because I wouldn’t ever have met her. I wondered suddenly if Terence did, if he knew on some level that he hadn’t met his true love. And if he did, what did he feel? Mawkish sorrow, like one of his Victorian poems? Or a gnawing of some need unsatisfied? Or just a grayness to everything?
I took Cyril out to the stable. Princess Arjumand had come down with us, and she stalked ahead across the wet grass, her tail in the air, coming back periodically to wind herself around Cyril’s hind legs and my ankles. There was a sound over by the stable, and the big doors began to creak open.
“Hide,” I said, scooping up Princess Arjumand and ducking back into the shelter of the kitchen door. The groom, looking like he’d just been awakened, pushed the doors open, and the driver led two horses, hitched to the carriage, out. The carriage to take Professor Peddick and Colonel Mering to the station.
I looked toward the house. Baine was bringing out the luggage and setting it on the front steps. Professor Peddick stood behind him in his academic gown and mortarboard, holding his kettle of fish against his stomach and talking to Terence.
“Come along,” I whispered to Cyril and started toward the side of the stable. Princess Arjumand wriggled wildly in my arms, trying to get free, and I let her down. She took off like a shot across the lawn. I led Cyril in the groom’s door.
“Make it look like you’ve been here all night,” I said, and Cyril promptly went over to his burlap sacking, turned round three times, flopped down, and began to snore loudly.
“Good boy,” I said, and let myself out of the stable. And collided with Terence.
“Have you got Cyril?” he said.
“I just brought him down,” I said. “Why? Is something wrong? Did Mrs. Mering see me?”
He shook his head. “Baine came and knocked me up this morning and said Colonel Mering was ill and would I accompany Professor Peddick to Oxford. Seems he caught a chill yesterday fishing for trout, and Mrs. Mering wants to make certain Professor Peddick makes it home. Good idea, actually. He’s likely to spot a hill that reminds him of the Battle of Hastings or something and get off the train. I thought I’d take Cyril. Thought it would be a bit of a holiday for him from—” he stopped and started again, “—especially as he didn’t get to go to Coventry yesterday. Is he in the stable?”
“Next to the hay bales,” I said, but when he opened the groom’s door, Cyril was standing just inside, wagging his pudgy body.
“Would you like to take a journey by rail, old man?” Terence said, and the two of them set off happily for the house.
I waited till the carriage had set off and Baine had gone back into the house and then legged it out to the laburnum arbor before the groom came yawning back to the stables, and then went out through the herbaceous border and across the croquet lawn to the gazebo.
There was someone in it. I circled round the weeping willow and came up behind the lilacs. A dark figure was sitting hunched on one of the side benches. Who would be sitting out here at this hour? Mrs. Mering, hunting for ghosts? Baine, catching up on his reading?
I parted the lilac branches so I could see better, sending a shower of water over my blazer and flannels. Whoever it was, they had a cloak wrapped around them and a hood pulled up over their head. Tossie? Waiting for a rendezvous with her life-changing lover? Or the mysterious Mr. C himself?
I couldn’t see the figure’s face from there. I needed to be on the other side of the gazebo. I carefully let go of the branches, dousing myself again, and stepped back squarely on Princess Arjumand.
“Mrowrrrr!” she yowled, and the figure darted up, clutching the cloak. The hood fell back.
“Verity!” I said.
“Ned?”
“Mreer!” Princess Arjumand said. I scooped her up to see if I’d hurt her. “Mere,” she said, and began to purr.
I carried her round the lilacs and over to where Verity was standing. “What are you doing out here?” I said.
Verity looked as pale as one of Mrs. Mering’s spirits. The cloak, which must have been an evening cloak of some kind, was drenched, and under it she had on her white nightgown.
“How long have you been out here?” I said. Princess Arjumand was squirming. I put her down. “You didn’t have to report in. I told you I’d do it when I brought Cyril down. What did Mr. Dunworthy say about—” and saw her face. “What is it?”
“The net won’t open,” she said.
“What do you mean, it won’t open?”
“I mean, I’ve been out here for three hours. It won’t open.”
“Sit down and tell me exactly what happened,” I said, indicating the bench.
“It won’t open!” she said. “I couldn’t sleep, and I thought the sooner we reported in, the better, and I could be back before anybody got up, so I came out to the drop, and the net wouldn’t open.”
“The drop’s not there?”
“No, it’s there. You can see the shimmer. But when I step into it, nothing happens.”
“Could you be doing something wrong? Are you sure you were standing in the right place?”
“I’ve stood in a dozen different places,” she said impatiently. “It won’t open!”
“All right, all right,” I said. “Could someone have been there? Someone who might have seen you? Mrs. Mering, or Baine, or—”
“I thought of that. After the second time, I walked down to the river and out to the fishpond and over to the flower garden, but no one was there.”
“And you aren’t wearing something from this era?”
“I thought of that, too, but this is the nightgown I brought through in my luggage, and, no, it hasn’t been mended or had a new button sewn on.”
“Maybe it’s you,” I said. “I’ll try.”
“I hadn’t thought of that,” she said more cheerfully. “The next drop should be any minute.”
She led me out of the gazebo and around to the side to a patch of grass next to a cluster of pink peonies. There was already a faint glitter to the grass. I hastily checked my clothes. Blazer, flannels, socks, shoes, and shirt were all the ones I’d worn through.
The air shimmered, and I stepped into the very center of the grass. The light began to grow. “Is this what happened when you tried it?” I said.