Not Quite Darcy (19 page)

“Eliza, do you understand what the doctor is trying to do?” William asked.

“Yes, and it's barbaric. I'm not letting him anywhere near me with that thing.”

The doctor continued, undaunted. “In cases of pneumonia it is advised to remove four pounds of blood from the patient within the first two days of the onset of the illness, and six more pounds in the days following. I assure you, this is standard practice. If need be, we'll restrain her so that I may proceed.”

“William, please.” She looked at him plaintively. “Don't let that vampire near me.”

“A vampire?” The doctor shook his head at William. “Hallucinating about Penny Dreadfuls. She's clearly suffering from delirium.” He began to unwind a long rubber tube.

William knelt down beside Eliza and gently squeezed her hand. “Do you know who you are?”

“I'm Eliza.”

“And who am I?”

“William.” Not
Lancaster
then? He was William to her, and he had to believe she was of sound enough mind to know her path in this.

“We shall not be bleeding her, Dr. Hill. If you'd be so good as to apply any other remedies.”

Eliza interrupted. “I'll let you put a musty bastard on my chest.”

“My dear fellow,” Dr. Hill blustered. “You're listening to a deranged maid over my sound medical advice? She's an American, for god's sake!”

“She intends to say a ‘mustard plaster.' Eliza is not mad. She simply has a unique way with words,” William said.

“Be that as it may, even with the best medical care, easily one third of pneumonia patients expire from the illness. Without bold intervention, you risk—”

“You will talk no more of death in her presence,” William interrupted. “We no longer require your services, Dr. Hill. Now let me show you to the door.” For an utterly exhausted man, his tone held a shocking amount of fury.

Dr. Hill's mouth hung open as if someone had removed the screws from a hinge. He stared blankly as William took him by the arm and led him from the room.

Chapter Twenty

Upon waking, Eliza felt as though she'd been dreaming for a week. She remembered little of her illness. Only a few scraps of strange images and almost-memories flitted across her mind. Visions of melting wallpaper and hot flames licking her body. Her strongest memory was of William's face interspersed with Lancaster's, flickering back and forth like a movie that had jumped the reel.

She climbed out of bed, her stiff joints making progress slower than usual. When she stood, she had to brace herself against the wall as her knees weren't entirely enthusiastic about supporting her. She opened her door and followed the distinctive sound of Dora's humming, trailing one hand along the wallpaper for support.

Dora was sorting sheets, or possibly towels, in the upstairs linen closet. She looked up as soon as Eliza rounded the corner.

“Eliza!” Dora dropped her bundle and rushed to Eliza's side. “Back to bed, you!”

With one arm wrapped around Eliza's waist, the maid squired her down the hall. Once they were inside Eliza's bedroom, Dora eased Eliza back on the bed and retrieved a glass of water from the corner table. Dora held it to Eliza's lips, and she took a grateful sip.

“What day is it?”

“It's Thursday morning now. You've been quite out of your head since Sunday.”

Eliza only nodded since talking irritated her raw throat.

“Gave us all a terrible fright, you did, but no one more so than the mister. Don't know if I was more worried for you or him, truth be told.”

“William's all right?” Eliza had the strangest feeling that something was now very wrong when it came to William, though she couldn't quite put her finger on why.

“I've never seen Mr. Brown in such a state. He wouldn't leave your side for the worst of it. Do you remember? You were saying the queerest things.”

Eliza felt too frightened to ask for details.

“He wept for you, Eliza. I've never seen Mr. Brown weep before. Even when his da left this earth. Was right strange. Felt responsible for you catching such an illness, I suppose.”

Eliza nodded noncommittally as Dora chattered on.

“Mrs. Brown's much better though. Saw her boy upset, and it spurred her right out of her sick bed, it did. Her son needed her, and that was that. She's not been so active since December. Spent the last few afternoons in the parlor downstairs, she did.”

“And Will—Mr. Brown?”

“Don't see much of the mister at all, other than when he comes in to check on you, and he don't do so much of that of late.”

Dora looked Eliza over as if coming to some kind of decision, and then bent down to whisper. “He's been drinking, and not just a little. It's as unlike him as anything I've seen. 'S like our kind Mr. Brown packed his bags and left us with a stranger who's so drunk that he can't see a hole in a forty-foot ladder. A right cross fellow he's been lately.”

Oh shit. Was it really as bad as that? Her memory of her sickness was fuzzy—an opiate cloud combined with fevered dreams gave her the blurriest picture of what had gone on.

“Dora, I'd like to rest now. Would you mind?”

“Not at all, Eliza.”

Perhaps if she feigned sleep, Dora would leave the room. Eliza needed a minute alone—to try to figure out what had gone wrong with William and what she might be able to do about it. Dora lingered, however, and it wasn't long before Eliza fell into a shallow slumber.

She woke to an empty room. William was the first thought in her mind. A chill had wrapped around her that had nothing to do with pneumonia and everything to do with Dora's words about the changes he'd undergone. Her need to see him turned into a kind of hunger that grew by the minute, growling in her belly and pulling at her mind.

She dressed as hurriedly as she was able. Her uncooperative hands shook and made buttoning a painfully difficult process. Still a bit wobbly on her feet, she leaned against the wall as she walked the familiar path to his room and their library. She could hear Mrs. Brown and Dora in conversation, echoing up from downstairs, but nothing stirred on the second floor.

He wasn't in the library, so she knocked softly on his door. When there was no answer, she was desperate enough to try the latch. It was locked. Locked? Oh, it really was as bad as all that.

Since it was four o'clock in the afternoon, she assumed he was at his club, so she retreated to her bedroom in defeat. Sick and tired of being sick and tired, she poked around her small room, looking for any kind of distraction. Something to keep her mind from the gnawing fear that kept rising up from her stomach. She gazed absently out of the window onto the back garden, pondering what she should do, when she saw him.

William was sitting on the little stone bench in the back of the garden. He held a bottle of whiskey and stared at a patch of earth at his feet. The wind had blown his unruly hair about, completely covering his eyes, but he made no move to brush it aside. He tipped the bottle up for another swig.

Eliza's legs shook, but she rushed down the back stairs as fast as she was able. She was careful to step lightly so the rest of the household wouldn't hear.

She slipped out of the back door and was halfway across the yard before William looked up. Through his mop of hair, his expression was impossible to read. He stood and wove toward the rear of the garden, behind the rose trellis. She followed determinedly.

When she rounded the corner, she was greeted by a view of his back. He was looking over the brick garden wall.

“Eliza, you should return to the house.” His voice was eerily toneless. He did not turn around.

“William, please. Can't we talk?”

“No.”

Not knowing what else to do, she lifted a tentative hand to touch his shoulder.

At her touch, he spun around. She felt a sudden dropping sensation, as if she were tumbling backward through a cold sky. Dark circles were etched beneath his haunted eyes, and his cheeks were covered with a rough layer of stubble.

“Can you not give me this one thing Eliza? Do I demand so much of you that you cannot grant me this?” His voice had never sounded so jagged, so bitter.

Immediately, he tucked his chin down, staring at the ground. She forced herself to look at him. What had happened to change him so drastically in the space of a few days?

He did not look up. “I can't bear to look at you. You're already everywhere. Every room in that house. I'm haunted by you. My bedchamber, the library, even the bloody parlor. So I come to the back garden to escape, to buy a bit of peace, but there is none to be found here, either. I can't escape you. You're in my head, my gut, my every breath. And if that weren't enough, you come down to me in the flesh anyway.”

His words felt like knives in her chest. It hurt to inhale, whether it was from her illness or William, she didn't know. She reached around to hold onto the trellis for support.

“William, please tell me why you're so angry with me.”

“Do you insist I go into the details? Is it not painful enough yet? Your plans, your
mission
with Mr. Lancaster. What a fool I was.” His hand gripped the bottle so tightly that his knuckles were white.

“Oh, no. From what I said when I was sick? No, William, I really think you misunderstand.”

“Misunderstand, do I?” He gave her an icy look of contempt. “Even after hearing you speak of your mission, I still had to see for myself. Like a fool, I went to speak to him. Went to the address on his letter of recommendation.”

She winced. “What happened?”

“You bloody well know what happened. Goddammit, Eliza. Stop trying to play me.”

He lifted a hand up to tug on his hair, then took another deep pull from the bottle. “The address on Lancaster's letter was an empty office building. It's been vacant for years and is slated for demolition,” he spat out bitterly.

“It's not what you think.”

“What am I to think, Eliza?” Her name dropped from his lips like a curse. “That your mission here was altruistic? If it were, why would you deceive me so? A dying woman and her socially inept son. It's easy to determine what your plans were for me. I may be a fool, but I can see a thing that's directly before me.”

She tried to speak, but the words caught in her throat. She'd done this. Cruelly molded her sweet William into this bitter, broken man. It hadn't been intentional, but she'd done it all the same.

“Is Lancaster your lover, Eliza?”

“No! God no, William.”

“As if I could expect the truth from you.” He looked at her with bloodshot eyes. “I can't even dismiss you. I tried to free you from your position once, you know. You don't leave.”

“I want to explain, and I will, but not now. Not when you're drunk out of your mind.”

“Since I don't plan on becoming reacquainted with sobriety in the near future, we seem to be at an impasse.”

“Hear me out,” she said. “Sober up and listen to what I have to say. After we talk, if you really think its best, I'll go. I'll do as you wish. But first you have to hear my story.”

He didn't respond. Not a nod, not a word. She didn't know what else she could say to him, so she turned and unsteadily made her way back to the house. He did nothing to stop her.

When she'd first met him, when she encouraged him to pursue boxing, she'd wanted to inspire him to stand up for himself. She'd given him the impetus to do that all right, but in the worst possible way. By breaking his heart and making him stand up to her.

Tell no one where you're from.
The last of the Repairmen's rules. If only she'd known what was to come, she would have broken the stupid rule. She'd broken the others—what could one more hurt?

She could only hope that he'd believe the rather improbable sounding truth. It was all she had to offer him.

At eight o'clock the following evening, she heard the soft tread of his footsteps in the hallway. The now familiar sight of the ivory sheet of paper, carefully folded in half, slid beneath the crack of her door. She eagerly opened it.

Eliza,

Yesterday you spoke of your wish to have a conversation with me. I shall be in the library for the remainder of the evening should you wish to do so.

Yours,

William

She waited patiently until the sounds of his footsteps faded. No need to trample the man in her rush to complete the course. She would be steady and calm, taking careful steps where his heart was concerned.

Throughout the day, despite Dora's best intentions at conversation, Eliza had remained silent while she mentally practiced the speech she would give to William. And when he was locked in his room, she'd even spent time in the library researching books about time travel. Unfortunately, H.G. Wells'
The Time Machine
either wasn't in their library or hadn't been published yet. She did, however, find a few useful books on the topic that she'd inconspicuously left on William's desk.

Standing before the door of the library, she hesitated. Knock? Just go on in? Why did she feel like a girl opening the door on her first date? This was William. This was their library. And yet there she was, frozen in fear.

She straightened, took a deep breath and stepped in to find him seated in one of the green wing back chairs next to the flickering fire. His hair was neatly combed and he'd shaved, but the haunted look remained in his eyes.

“Eliza.” He stood to greet her, his expression solemn, composed.

“Thank you, William. I know this can't be easy for you. It isn't easy for me either.”

He said nothing to this, but sat back down in the chair, his serious eyes trained on her.

She closed the door behind her and stepped into the room. “I have a speech,” she began brightly. “It's not a bad speech really. It has a few main points, like it's supposed to have. It has a great concluding paragraph. The only problem is that I could never really come up with a beginning for it.”

He remained silent.

“I remember some of what I said when I was so sick, and I know that this was disturbing to you. I talked a lot about my mission and Lancaster.”

At the sound of the name, he winced. It was as if she'd sliced at him with an incorporeal blade.

“Oh shit. I really should have worked on a better beginning. William, I don't know how else to do this. Dragging it out isn't going to do either of us any favors.” Eliza swallowed and looked at the floor. It hurt too much to look at him. “You know how you've noticed that I have a secret? That there was something you knew I was hiding?” She hesitated.

“This mission was your secret? This man?” He specifically avoided saying Lancaster's name, his tone carefully controlled.

“Hoo boy.” She let out a breath of air in a huff. “You see? Um, you know how you've been feeling that I didn't quite come from this place? How I've been getting so many things wrong and just not quite fitting? You're right. I've never been a maid and I wasn't born in Yorkshire. I come from a very different place. But it's not so much the
where
I'm from that's been the problem. It's the 
when
. I come from another time than this one.”

He said nothing for a long while, and then finally asked in a carefully modulated voice, “From where do you come, then?”

“Yeah. That's the sticky bit. Well, the first bit isn't so hard. I'm really from America, from California, just like I said.”

He gave her a befuddled look.

“But the real stickler is the
when
part.”

“And when do you come from, then?” He laid his head back against the chair and closed his eyes, rubbing his forehead.

“More than a hundred years from now.”

He said nothing. He simply lay back in the chair, eyes closed.

“I know that it sounds improbable, but it's not inconceivable,” Eliza said. “You've got books on it.
Rip Van Winkle
 by Hoozit and That Other Book by Whatsit. You know the ones I mean.” She gestured toward the books she'd subtly left for him to read.