All Clear (61 page)

I’m going to catch my death no matter what I do
, she thought.

“Being a warden’s no more dangerous than being on the fire watch,” she said, but Mr. Humphreys was still looking for this person he wanted her to meet.

“I do hope he hasn’t left,” he fretted, starting back along the choir
aisle. “I did so want you to meet him. I’ve told him all about you. Such a nice gentleman. Do you know what he said the first time he saw
The Light of the World
? He said, ‘He looks as though he could forgive anything.’ So interesting, isn’t it, what people see? Each time one looks at it, one sees something diff—”

“If not an air-raid warden, then some other Civil Defence job—”

“Mr. Hobbe—that’s the gentleman I want you to meet—has only just got out of hospital.” He peered into the dim recesses of the south transept. “He’s had rather a hard time of it, I’m afraid. He was wounded in a bomb blast, a head wound, and he’s still not entirely recovered. Let me just check the north transept,” he said, though Mr. Hobbe obviously wasn’t there—they’d just come from there.

The sailors weren’t there either. They must have seen their chance and fled.

“Mr. Hobbe is almost as fond of Captain Faulknor’s memorial as he is of
The Light of the World
,” Mr. Humphreys said, which Polly doubted. She wondered if he’d fled, too.

“Last week I found him here after the sirens had gone,” Mr. Humphreys went on obliviously, “sitting against one of the pillars, looking at Captain Faulknor’s statue.”

Which is impossible
, Polly thought.
It’s covered in sandbags
.

“And when I began to tell him about Captain Faulknor’s tying the two ships together, he knew all about it. ‘It bound them into one,’ he said—”

“I think Mr. Hobbe must have gone home,” Polly said, “and I must go, too. If you could just tell me the name of someone I could speak to about getting hired on by Civil Defence, I—”

“But he can’t have gone home. I don’t believe he has one. I think it may have been destroyed in the same bomb blast. I’ve found him here at night several times since then.”

“At night?”

“Yes, and that first night, when I said I’d have one of the watch accompany him home—he’s not well, and I hated to think of him out in the blackout—I asked him where he lived, and he said, ‘It doesn’t exist.’ ”

“It doesn’t—?”

“Yes, dreadful, isn’t it, to think of him bombed out in this weather, with only a shelter to—”

“You said he’s been coming in every day,” Polly said. “For how long?”

“Several weeks,” he said, walking back out to the dome. “He began
coming in shortly before the New Year. I’m afraid you’ve just missed him. What a pity. I did so want you two—”

“What does he look like?”

“Look like? He’s my age, or perhaps a bit older. Tall, thin, spectacles. I think he may have been a schoolmaster. He knows all about the history of St. Paul’s. He’s clearly troubled about something. I fear his family may have been killed in the bombing, he looks so sad. That’s partly why I wanted you to meet him. I thought your being interested in
The Light of the World
, too, might cheer—”

He stopped in midsentence. “I know where he’ll be,” he said. “He never leaves without taking a last look at it.” He started across the nave, but Polly had already passed him, running toward the south aisle, praying he was still there.

He was. He stood in front of the painting, his hat in his hands, his shoulders slumped tiredly, looking up at Christ’s face under its crown of thorns.

“One sees something different each time one looks at it,” Mr. Humphreys had said, and it was true. This time Christ looked not bored, not frightened, but infinitely sorry for both of them.

Polly stepped forward and put her hand on Mr. Dunworthy’s sleeve. “It’s all right,” she said, and began to cry.

POLLY LOOKED AT MR. DUNWORTHY STANDING THERE IN
front of
The Light of the World
, and for a moment she thought she must have been wrong, as she had been wrong that night outside St. Paul’s, and it wasn’t him after all, but only someone who resembled him.

He seemed far older than the Mr. Dunworthy she knew, and his shabby coat, his worn hat, had an authenticity Wardrobe could never have managed. And he looked so weary. Mr. Humphreys had said he was “troubled” and “not well,” but it was far worse than that. He looked exhausted, broken. Defeated. Mr. Dunworthy had never been defeated by anything in his life.

But Polly had known even before she saw him that it was him—and worse, that the man she’d seen looking up at the dome of St. Paul’s that night had been him, too. And the reason he looked so defeated, so … beaten, was that he was as trapped and helpless as she and Eileen were. He wasn’t here as a rescuer. He was a fellow castaway.

But the mere fact that he was here at least meant that Oxford still existed. They hadn’t altered history and lost the war. And Oxford hadn’t been destroyed in some catastrophe. Everyone there wasn’t dead. And even if Mr. Dunworthy was shipwrecked, too, he was
here
, and she was overjoyed to see him.

“I’m so glad—” she began, and he turned and looked at her, but there was no surprise, no joy in his face, and as she stepped toward him,
he backed away from her till he came up hard against
The Light of the World
.

Oh, God, Mr. Humphreys had said he’d been injured by a bomb blast, that he’d been in hospital. Could he have suffered brain damage? Could that be why he’d stared at her without recognition that night, and why he looked so afraid now? Because he didn’t know her? “Mr. Dunworthy?” she said softly because Mr. Humphreys would be here any moment. “It’s me …”

“Polly,” he murmured. “It’s really you, isn’t it? It isn’t a dream? There were times in hospital when I thought that all of it—Oxford and time travel and you—was only a dream.”

“It wasn’t,” Polly said, “and I’m really here. Eileen—Merope’s here as well. She’ll be so glad to see you! This is wonderful!” She moved to embrace him.

“No,” he said, and put up his hands to ward her off. “Not wonderful. Not when you—”

“It’s all right. We already know about the drops not working. Michael—” She stopped herself in time. She would have to tell him about Michael’s death, but not yet. He didn’t look strong enough to bear it.

“We know we’re stranded here,” she said instead, but he was shaking his head.

“You
don’t
know,” he said fiercely. “Polly,” he began, and then stopped, as if he couldn’t bear to tell her. And what could be worse than knowing they couldn’t get out? What could make him look so … 
Oh, God
, she thought.
It’s Colin. He came through with Mr. Dunworthy
.

Colin had talked him into letting him come along. Or tricked him and ducked under the net at the last moment, as he had when he was twelve. Whichever, they had both been here, they’d both been hit by the bomb blast. And the fact that he was here alone, that he’d been at St. Paul’s alone on the twenty-ninth, could only mean one thing.

“Did Colin—?”

“Oh, my goodness!” Mr. Humphreys said, bustling up. “Do you two
know
each other? But what a happy coincidence! I knew I was right in thinking you should meet.” He beamed at both of them. “But I had no idea you were acquainted. How do you know Miss Sebastian, Mr.

Hobbe?”

“He taught me at school,” Polly said so Mr. Dunworthy wouldn’t have to answer.

“I
told
Miss Sebastian I thought you were a schoolmaster,” Mr. Humphreys said happily. “You knew so much about St. Pau—”

“And you were right, Mr. Humphreys,” she said. “Thank you so much for bringing us together and giving us this chance to visit,” she added, hoping he’d take the hint, but he took no notice.

“What was your subject, Mr. Hobbe?” he asked.

“History,” Polly said.

“I
knew
it! I told you he knew all about history, didn’t I, Miss Sebastian?” Mr. Dunworthy winced. “And I was right, you
are
an historian.”

She had to stop this, had to get Mr. Dunworthy away somehow. “Mr. Humphreys, I’m afraid we’re tiring Mr. Hobbe.”

She took Mr. Dunworthy’s arm. “You’ve only just got out of hospital. Perhaps—”

She had intended to say, “I should take him home,” but Mr. Humphreys was too quick for her. “Oh, of course, how thoughtless of me. Let me fetch you a chair.” He bustled off toward the nave.

The instant he was out of earshot, Polly said, “Mr. Dunworthy, it’s Colin, isn’t it? He came through with you, didn’t he?”

“Colin? No, I wouldn’t let him come.”

Polly’s knees nearly buckled from the force of the relief she felt, and she had to put a hand out to the pillar to steady herself.

“I wanted to get you out as quickly as possible,” Mr. Dunworthy said. “I was afraid the slippage might spike, and you’d be trapped here past your deadline.”

“But then why didn’t you come in September?”

“I did, but the slippage sent me through to December.”

Three months’ slippage. That meant the reason their drops hadn’t opened could have been because of slippage after all, and the entire first few months of the Blitz had been a divergence point. And now that the twenty-ninth was over …

But if it was merely slippage, Mr. Dunworthy wouldn’t look so utterly devoid of hope. Unless the bomb blast had destroyed his drop.

“Where’s your drop?” she asked, and then remembered what Mr. Humphreys had said about him frequenting the north transept. “It’s here, isn’t it? In St. Paul’s? Is that why you’ve been coming here every day? You’ve been waiting for it to open?”

He shook his head. “It isn’t going to open.”

“What do you mean?”

A horrible thought struck her. He’d been to the Blitz before. What if it had been in February? “Mr. Dunworthy,” she said urgently, “when were you here before?”

“
Here
we are,” Mr. Humphreys said, arriving with a wooden folding chair. He opened it out with a snap and set it in front of the painting. “Come, sit down.” He took Mr. Dunworthy’s arm.

Mr. Dunworthy sank down heavily onto the chair, and Polly saw with dread how painfully he moved, how frail he was. She’d assumed she’d be killed just before her deadline by a bomb or shrapnel, but there were other ways of eliminating someone who might create a paradox—complications following an injury, or pneumonia.

“I should have thought of this before,” Mr. Humphreys was saying. “There should always be chairs in this bay, so that visitors can sit and contemplate
The Light of the World.
” He smiled happily up at it. “It’s a painting which cannot be understood in a few moments of looking. It requires time.”

“Time,” Mr. Dunworthy said bitterly.

Oh, God
, Polly thought.
He does have a deadline
.

“Did you tell Mr. Hobbe you were a fellow admirer of
The Light of the World
, Miss Sebastian?” Mr. Humphreys asked brightly. “That was why I wished the two of you to meet, Mr. Hobbe. I knew I was right to insist on its being here in St. Paul’s, even though only as a copy. ‘It belongs here,’ I told Dean Matthews. ‘Who knows what good may come from some visitor’s seeing it?’ And now look, it’s brought the two of you together. God truly does work in mysterious—”

Mr. Humphreys stopped at a sound of voices and looked out across the nave. The three sailors who’d been in the north transept were looking at the bricked-up Wellington Monument.

“Oh, good, they didn’t leave after all,” Mr. Humphreys said. “If I may take leave of you for a moment, I need to speak with them. I did not finish telling them the story of Captain Faulknor.”

He hurried off. Polly knelt in front of Mr. Dunworthy. “When were you here in the Blitz before?”

“When I was seventeen,” he said. “And again when I was—”

“No, no, the dates. What dates were you here doing observations?”

“In May and in October and November.”

“And that’s all?”

“No,” he said, and she could tell from his face that this was it, the bad news.

Oh, God
, she thought.

“September the seventeenth.”

But both that and his assignments to October and November were
safely past. Might he have come through early for the May raids to set things up as she’d done for Dulwich? “When did you come through for the big raids?”

“May first.”

“And those were the only times? You weren’t here in February or March or April?”

He shook his head.

Thank goodness
. She’d been terrified he’d say he’d been here tomorrow. Or tonight. May was dreadful enough, but it was three months off, and if the problem was just slippage …

“You mustn’t worry,” she said. “One of our drops is bound to open by then, Eileen’s or mine or the one in Hampstead Heath. And if you know what’s causing the problem … You do, don’t you?”

“Yes,” he said dully. “I know what’s causing the problem. I kept hoping it meant something else. When I found out I’d come through in December, I thought perhaps it was all right and you’d completed your assignment and were safely back in Oxford, but when I saw you at St. Paul’s—”

“I saw you, too,” Polly said, but he went on as if she hadn’t spoken.

“—and when I saw the three of you the next morning, sitting on the steps, I was afraid he was right.”

“You saw Merope and Michael and me?” Polly said, bewildered. Why hadn’t he come over and told them he was there? And who was he afraid was right? Right about what?

There was clearly a good deal here she didn’t understand, but this was no time to ask questions. Mr. Dunworthy looked exhausted and ill. His face was pinched with cold, and he’d begun to shiver. And Mr. Humphreys had said he’d been here all afternoon. He’d had no business spending the day in such a chill, drafty place when he was only just out of hospital. He’d had one relapse already. And
The Light of the World
’s lantern, for all its golden-orange glow, didn’t give off any warmth. She needed to get him home to a real fire.